


Tales from the Hanged Man

by tersa (alix)



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Awakening, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, Drabble Collection, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Gen Fic, Humor, Implied Relationships, M/M, Multi, Romance, Sexual Content, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 123
Words: 23,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alix/pseuds/tersa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short fics inspired by prompt fests at dragon_age & likeahawke@LJ, and Ficmas.</p><p>Each 'chapter' is a separate fic, and they range all over the gamut of characters and pairings.</p><p>04-Feb-15: Updated with<br/>Chapter 122, "You've Got Mail" (m!Cousland, implied past m!Cousland/Leliana, m!Cousland/Morrigan, current m!Cousland/Anora / G / light angst, headcanon, implied DAI spoilers)<br/>Chapter 123, "What could have been" (Morrigan, Alistair, Demon God Baby, implied Warden!Alistair/f!Warden / G / angsty fluff, DAI spoilers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wake the Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke, Anders, Isabela, and Varric / Gen

“You could try stabbing it," Varric suggested.

"That's a great idea," Hawke snarled. "Just walk up to a dragon as big as a house and stab it. I'm sure that would go over wonderfully."

"Maybe Blondie could do," Varric waggled his fingers, "one of those mage things."

Anders raised his eyebrows. "Mage things?"

"If it turns around, we're all going off the side of this mountain," Isabela noted.

Thwarted from proceeding any further, they turned and began trudging back down Sundermount.

"It was huge, right?" Varric suddenly said. "Teeth as long as Fenris's sword, eyes the size of dinner plates."

"Yes," Isabela took up the tale, "wings as wide as a galleon's sails."

No one ever had to know they didn't _really_ wake the dragon. That would have just been stupid.


	2. You’re not Hawke!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, Varric / Gen

He stomped around Lowtown glowering. As he neared, shopkeepers smiled, then look puzzled, then they looked away, disappointed. His clothes weren't robes, a sword, not a staff, on his back.

A dwarf came up to him, hair pulled back into a ponytail, shirt opened to the navel, and his blue eyes lit up. Finally.

But as the dwarf approached, the same look came over his face, and he sighed. "You're not Hawke."

Carver exploded. "Dammit, I'm a Hawke, too!"


	3. What has magic ever done for you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/m!Hawke, NSFW

Hawke's hands stroked Fenris's skin, down pale chest and up sinewy thigh, electric tingles zinging through him to coalesce in his groin. Blue sparks danced, shining off the silvery lyrium runes, absorbing them, adding warmth coursing into his cock that throbbed as wave after wave pulsed into him. A touch, Garrett's finger between the cleft of his ass, and Fenris cried out, his release coming in a spurt of milky cum.

Fenris collapsed back to the bed, eyes closed and shaking, as he wrestled with what Garrett had done to him. His breathing slowed, and he opened his eyes to find Garrett looking at him, hesitant. Expectant.

"Do it again."


	4. you kiss your mother with that mouth?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders/m!Hawke, NSFW

"What are you doing?" Anders murmured with curiosity, as Garrett's mouth slid off his shaft. Garrett's hands spread his thighs, lifting knees to hook over Garrett's shoulders.

The smile Garrett gave him sent a pulse of heat through his already swollen cock, his rich voice making him shiver. "Something I learned at the Blooming Rose a few years ago. I thought you might appreciate it..."

His head dipped as he trailed off, face disappearing into the cleft of Anders's arse. Anders had only a momentary thrill of anticipation before he felt Garrett's tongue touch the puckered star of flesh, and gasped...


	5. Carver's first child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver Hawke, OC / Gen

He’d named her Bethany, but there was nothing of his sweet twin in the little girl who picked up a stick when she was two and challenged her father to ‘play swards’ with her. There was nothing of Macha in her, either, all black hair and blue eyes, pointy elbows and gawky limbs.

She reminded him of himself. She reminded him of her.

When she was five, Carver scooped her up into his lap and snuggled her, dried her tears, and said, “Do you want to hear a story, little one? Let me tell you the story of the Champion of Kirkwall, my sister and your Aunt Marian...”


	6. don't have enough sense to come out of the rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/f!Hawke, Gen

“Hawke, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asked, tilting her head back so the rain pounded against her face, plastering her hair to her skull. Her soaked clothing clung to every curve, the flash of lightning highlighting the jut of her breasts.

Fenris’s mouth went dry at that, but called again from the doorway. “You are a fool.”

She spun in circles, laughing—it had been far too long since she’d laughed—and whirled towards him, throwing herself in his arms. Shaking her head, droplets sprayed everywhere, touching his face, scattering across her damp skin like diamonds.

As he peeled her out of her sodden clothes, her body squirming slick and wet against his, he decided that dancing in the rain was not one of the worst decisions she’d ever made.


	7. void if seal is broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian/f!Hawke / NSFW

He shivered. The breeze coming through her window carried a kiss of the lingering winter, blowing across skin accustomed to being this bare.

Marian knelt before him, candlelight reflecting off her blue eyes. Her hands rested on his thighs, the hair stirring to gooseflesh under her touch.

They moved, to the last piece of his armor, sliding the tongue of the strap to bulge across the buckle until it popped free, one, then the other until she cupped him, guiding the embossed triangle girding his loins away to expose his arousal.

“Maker forgive me,” Sebastian breathed. “I was a fool.”

She smiled up at him, hands splaying across his hips. “Yes,” she murmured, “you really were.”

Her mouth covered him, and he wished he’d yielded sooner.


	8. I start a war, you'll know

It really was quite beautiful, Anders thought, in the sheer magnitude of the destruction. The flames painted the low hanging clouds in vivid reds and oranges, spikes of yellow licking at the wooden support beams of the ruined structure.

He turned to Hawke, saw the look of horror on her face, and said, "I told you, you'd know."


	9. God gave me you for the days of doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders/m!Hawke / Gen

Anders’s eyes burned. The candle before him had burned down to a stub, a pool of cooling wax filling the saucer. It guttered once, in warning, and blearily, he lit a new one from the dying of the old, the light strengthening as the wick caught to illuminate the papers scattered over the table before him, the sharp, spiky words, words and words and words.

It was late. The bells of the Chantry chimed high and thin in the darkness, signaling [Lauds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauds). The street outside the open window was quiet, too late for the drunks, too early for the crafters to be about their business. It was at this time of night, when he felt so tired, so alone, that he questioned what they were doing. His heart and soul and passion poured out onto parchment. Would they read? Would they heed? Would they act? Or was his work here all for naught, mere kindling for someone’s hearth one night? He buried his face in his hand, fingers scraping into his hair. Rest. He needed rest.

He startled when a hand touched his back, Garrett’s scent following it, strong and musky as he breathed it in. Anders jerked upright and felt the warmth as Garrett leaned over his shoulder, picking up the latest broadsheet in his other hand. Garrett’s eyes flickered back and forth across the page, lips moving as he read, then put it back down gently. “I think you finally nailed it, love.” The hand at Anders’s back moved to smooth down his hair, soothing, a benediction. He beckoned softly, “Come to bed.”

He went. Because Garrett had asked. Because Garrett was his anchor. Because Garrett was the reminder of what he was fighting for.


	10. The price you pay for the chains you refuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian, Fenris/f!Hawke / Mildly NSFW

Sebastian had loved her from the moment he first saw her. Black hair, blue eyes, the swagger in her walk swayed her hips suggestively as she approached the Chantry board. He’d almost lost his train of thought talking to the Grand Cleric, had to walk off at the sudden fire in his blood and the stirring in his loins.

He was sworn to the Maker. A promise he intended to keep. A vow she had agreed, with obvious reluctance, to support him in, despite admitting her attraction. He admired her for it.

But that didn’t make it any easier to bear the torment of seeing her with Fenris, the way he allowed her to touch him when no one else could, the way she glowed when he smiled, or to feign sleep in the darkest night to the sounds of their joyous lovemaking.


	11. Your soul you must keep totally free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela/m!Hawke / Gen

The deck of the ship swayed beneath her booted feet, a motion Isabela rode thoughtlessly after years of long practice. But she noticed it, in ways she never used to, after so long on land.

The book, the qunari book, was in her hands once more. She could find Castellon, deliver it to him, and free herself of her debt at last. Then it would be just her and a ship, sailing the days away, making a little money on the side, men, women, and song.

And then a quiet, unfamiliar voice murmured at the back of her head. It spoke in Hawke’s voice, telling her everything bad that was going to happen in Kirkwall after she left. Merrill, losing everything important to her in a game at the Hanged Man, because she didn’t understand not to bet what you couldn't bear to lose. Fenris, recaptured by Danarius. Anders, lost to his damn demon. Aveline…no, she’d be fine.

But Hawke…stupid, noble Hawke would try to protect the city from the qunari, once they had had enough of waiting for the book she was taking away with her. Stupid, lovely Hawke, who had fucked her once then again and again, never demanding anything of her and yet she kept returning like a drunkard to the bar.

He’d faced down giant spiders and dragons and ancient demons, he wouldn’t back down from the Arishok.

Her own voice told her she was being stupid, an idiot, the worst kind of fool, but she nevertheless barked out the orders to turn the ship around.


	12. Arsenic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke/Anders / Angst

When Hawke had studied poison making with Tomwise, he’d taught Garrett that arsenic was easy to obtain, harder to administer as is given its bitter after taste. But there was a form of sugar that matched its consistency very well, and the sweetness would hide the flavor from the unwary or the trusting. Given small doses over time, the victim would be totally unaware of the poison hidden within.

As he looked at Anders’s face, bathed in the light of the burning Chantry, Hawke wondered if dying from arsenic poisoning felt like he did then.


	13. Back to the start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, m!Hawke / Gen

Carver stopped after disembarking, tilting his head back to look up at the imposing walls of the Gallows, made more imposing lit by the red glow still emanating from the rubble of the Chantry. Noticing, Garrett paused in his progress to look back at him, and catching the look on his face, cocked his head to one side curiously. “What?”

“Just remembering the first time we stepped off here,” Carver replied. “Who would’ve thought, all these years later, we’d be where we are? You, Champion, me, a Grey Warden. And now this…”

Garrett nodded, taking a moment to look over the edifice himself, but then beckoned with a hand. “Come on, we have some innocent mages to save.”

A wry smile twisted Carver’s mouth. “Shove your innocents.”

Garrett grinned and walked over to clap Carver on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you by my side again, brother.”

“Of course it is,” Carver teased.

Together, the brothers Hawke rushed through the gates to incite a rebellion.


	14. Can we not talk about sex for once?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, Isabela, f!Hawke, Varric / Angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my favorite flash fic I've ever written.

“Can we not talk about sex for once?”

Isabela paused. “What else do we have to talk about, sweetie?”

“Tell me what it was like to be a pirate. To be sailing, free, on the ocean, with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair.”

She brushed the hair off of Carver’s fevered forehead and settled his head more comfortably in her lap, better than the hard stone floor of the Deep Roads, beginning to tell him a tale of an Antivan pirate named Blackteeth and the Nevarran dragon relic she plundered from him.

Varric shifted on his feet nervously and muttered, “We should get moving. The darkspawn could find us.”

Wiping tears from her eyes, Marian shook her head. “No, let him have this.”


	15. Which side are you on?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris, f!Hawke / Gen

The Chantry burned. Anders sat slumped on a bench, and Fenris recognized the posture as a man who was ready to die. All around them, people screamed, and yet here, it was almost calm, at least on the surface, but a super-charged tension seemed ready to set off a second explosion.

“If you do this,” Fenris said, looking at her, “I’m not sure if I can stay.”

Fear entered her expression, but she nodded acknowledgement listening to what the others had to say.

She chose, and he closed his eyes briefly, blinking back tears.

He might have stayed with her to the end, he thought, as he walked through the streets and away from Kirkwall. If only she had decided differently.


	16. I'd just as soon kiss a templar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders, f!Hawke, Aveline, Isabela, genfic

They were doubled over panting when the spiders attacked.

Anders shrieked like a little girl, throwing a fireball into the midst of the pile with too many furry legs and too many beady black eyes and their nightmarish pincers and spit. He scurried to the back of the group, putting Hawke, Aveline, and Isabela between him and them, then called up a good old-fashioned firestorm to be sure while they beat a hasty retreat towards the beckoning sunlight.

“They’re not following,” Aveline said with a puzzled frown.

Behind them, they heard a growl and whirled. A dragon sat perched on a rocky outcropping, looking down at them and licking its chops.

“Oh shit,” Hawke said, glancing over her shoulder. “Maybe we could get back into the tunnel. The spiders aren’t so bad…”

Gripping his staff in his white-knuckled grip, Anders planted the tip on the ground. “I’d just as soon as kiss a templar.”

The dragon roared.


	17. Cup of sugar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric, Fenris / Gen

“Andraste’s womanly hips, Elf, you live _right here_ and you never noticed someone had moved back into my brother’s house?” Varric grumbled, stomping up the steps.

Fenris gave a helpless shrug. “How was I supposed to know?”

Varric snorted. “I don’t know. Saw the moving wagons, went over to borrow a cup of sugar or something. Not very neighborly, are you?”

“Not really,” Fenris agreed nonchalantly. “You’ve seen the mansion.”

Muttering, Varric kicked in the door.


	18. A good man goes to war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian, f!Hawke / Angst

He tightened the strap on his vambrace and paused, memory washing over him of another time and place.

“Sebastian,” Marian had said with annoyance, “they have Bethany, will you _please_ let me help you with your armor so we can get going?”

Her hands had been warm on his skin as she placed the pieces, unintentional caresses that still set fire to his loins and brought a blush to his cheeks.

She’d patted his cheek before putting on her helmet and marching out of the Chantry

He sighed.

“Your grace?” the man near the door asked with uncertainty.

The Prince of Starkhaven turned to face him. “Tell the men we’re ready. We move out within the hour.”


	19. I wish...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Hawke, Sebastian / Gen

Marian knelt before the altar, letting the silence of the Chantry envelope. The scent of beeswax candles filled her nostrils, the dried petals of roses and crushed lavender. She didn’t rock, as so many pentitents did, simply sat on her heels, hands folded before her.

 _Andraste,_ she thought, _I don’t know if you actually hear your prayers, but I so need guidance right now. You told us that magic should serve, never the other way around, but are the templars right in their suspicions? Is Fenris right? Or should we put more trust in the mages, as Anders says._

She thought of Merrill, who had had the freedom to choose, and had chosen the forbidden blood magic, would have given herself over to the demon if Marethari hadn’t sacrificed herself, and shook her head.

 _There has to be another option._

“Hawke?” Sebastian’s soft voice broke into the stillness.

She turned to look over her shoulder and saw him approach. When he reached her side, he put a hand to her shoulder, a comforting gesture, and needing that comfort, she leaned her cheek to rest on the back. A startled quiver went through his arm that she felt through the contact, but then his hand moved, brushing against her skin.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

She smiled. “I can’t explain.” She reached up to grasp his hand, the palm callused and warm, a steadying anchor to push herself to her feet. “But can we talk?”


	20. I call it Vera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, Varric / Gen fic

Carver brandished the huge sword, the sunlight reflecting off the metal blade from hours of loving polish. “I call it Vera.”

“Vera,” Varric said dubiously. “That’s an _interesting_ name for a weapon.”

“Oh, and ‘Bianca’ is better?” Carver snapped.

Hawke grinned. “Touché”


	21. the ghost of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Cousland/Nathaniel, implications of past f!Cousland/Alistair / Gen/Angst

Lightning storms in the spring.

The smell of roses in the summer.

The first wheels of cheese in the autumn.

Firelight and furs in the winter.

Elissa stood on the parapets of Amaranthine looking south, to something she couldn’t see, but _knew_ was there, her cloak wrapped close around her against the winds skirling through the crenels. This year, her eyes were dry.

A hand touched her shoulder, Nathaniel’s gravelly voice soft, as it always was on this day. “They’re waiting for you.”

She turned her head to kiss the back of his hand briefly, in gratitude, then squared her shoulders and headed down the stairs to the celebration.


	22. Meta-gaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Hawke/Anders, references to f!Hawke/Fenris / Humor

Although Anders’s kiss knocked the wind from her lungs and made her toes curl in her boots, Marian pushed him away by the shoulders. And when his mouth worked as if to speak, she cut him off with, “Wait, stop, stop.”

Confusion twisted his expression. “What?”

“That was great and all,” Marian said, letting out a whoosh of air. “Hoo-WHEE. But…I wasn’t actually flirting with you. I mean, I know it sounded like flirting, but it wasn’t, that’s just me. I’m a smart-ass, remember?”

“Yesss…” Anders drawled out, still puzzled.

“Actually, I’m hoping that Fenris will come around, eventually,” she went on. “I mean,” she waved a hand at him, “possessed mage losing control of…whatever it is Justice is now…and you already promised me three years ago you’ll only bring me pain if I got involved with you. Or, y’know, _that_.” She jabbed a finger in the direction of Fenris’s Mansion. “All that smoldering anger, that _voice_. And if he even caught one whiff that I’d fooled around with you, then my chance with him,” she snapped her fingers, “gone, just like that.”

Anders began glaring at her.

“Look, it’s nothing personal. So, why don’t I leave, and I’ll walk in again, and that never happened, right?”


	23. Who ever said I played fair?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke/Isabela / Humor, NSFW

Sweat drenched Garrett’s brow in the wake of their exertion, his skin sliding against Isabela’s in a slippery lack of friction as she rolled off of him. “That was…” he trailed off, and exhaled a blissful sigh. “Incredible.”

“I know, darling,” she said with a laugh, her hips swaying enticingly as she crossed the floor to gather her clothes. “I told you it would be.”

As the euphoric high passed, he became aware once more of the bite of hemp on the delicate flesh of wrist and ankle, a minor but growing irritation, no matter how enjoyable it was to watch her turn dressing into a seductive art. “Do you mind…?” he asked, giving a tug on the rope tying him to the bedframe.

“Actually, I do,” she said, tying off her corset. She plucked his money purse from his discarded belt, then came back to the bed to kiss his astonished mouth. “I promise not to spend it all in one place, but I absolutely _must_ have that lovely dagger set I saw Korval’s you refused to buy me.”

She began walking out, and he sputtered, “You…tricked me into this, didn’t you? That’s not fair!”

“Who ever said I played fair?” she said with an toss of her hair. “I’ll be back later. You better hope you’re still here when I am.”

He snarled as the door closed behind her, but then went suddenly cold, and groaned. Maker. What if _mother_ found him?


	24. Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, f!Cousland / Gen

He had never been a heavy sleeper, and some nights, like this one, sleep eluded him entirely. He slipped out of bed and padded down the stairs to the kitchens. The boy on duty was fast sleep, curled up on the hearth, and Carver chuckled, a bit jealous.

“Can’t sleep?” a quiet voice asked.

Carver whirled towards the voice, recognizing it only a heartbeat later and quickly saluted with a fist over his heart. “Commander. I, uh…”

She waved off his attempts at an excuse. “As you were. We’re all equals this time of night, in this place. Will you join me?”

“As you will,” he replied, fetching a mug of the tea left to steep near the fire. The warmth felt good in his hands. Settling on the bench opposite her, he stared into the inky depths, searching for something to say. “You were at Ostagar, weren’t you?”

“So they say,” she said, her tone so dry his eyes came up from the mug. A faint smile turned up the corner of her mouth. “I wasn’t part of the battle itself. But you were, weren’t you?” she asked, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.

He dipped his chin, gaze falling once more. “Yes. Ever since then…” He flicked his hand up, indicating the situation.

“And being a Grey Warden doesn’t help with that. Do the nightmares bother you?”

“I’ve never not had nightmares, since then.”

She pulled a flask out of her hip pocket and waggled at him. When he nodded, she leaned over and poured a measure into his mug and the dregs of hers. Lifting the cup, she raised it towards him and said, “To nightmares. Because it’s still a damn sight better than the alternative.”

He clinked his glass with hers, but wondered how strange his life had become that he was drinking at midnight with a Cousland of Highever.


	25. Bread and butter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Hawke, Bethany, Leandra / Gen/Angst

“Look what I have,” Marian said.

“Bread!” Bethany cried, reaching to take it from Marian’s arms. “Bread from a bakery!”

“It’s the one up in Hightown Gamlen mentioned.” Marian looked at Leandra, sitting in a rocking chair staring into the fire, waiting for a reaction. When she turned her head, Marian continued with, “He said they used to get their bread from there. And look,” she added, pulling a small package wrapped in oiled paper out of her pocket. “I even found some butter.”

“I haven’t had that bread since I was a girl,” Leandra said, rising from the chair. “How did you manage it?”

“Don’t worry about that, Mother. I told you I’d take care of you.”

She knew how Leandra would react if she found out Marian had sold all of Carver’s things. But Carver didn’t need them anymore, and the light in Leandra’s eyes after so much gray made it worth it.


	26. Ribbons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver Hawke / Angst

He had never known her to be without ribbons. She would wear them in her hair when they were younger, and he’d tug an end, pulling it loose and run away from her laughing while she shrieked and chased after him. They were bookmarks in the tomes Father gave her, big fat ones, small slender ones, colorful tails of violet and red and green dangling out to hold her place. Sometimes Marian would sit patiently and allow her to braid blue ones into her black hair, “To match your eyes,” Bethany had said, humming happily as she worked.

The last one fluttered in the wind sighing over the plateau, the red miraculously untouched by the blood seeping into the ground under her. Carver tugged on it, freeing it from being pinned under her head, curling it into a neat loop to tuck into his pouch.

He’d cry for his twin later.


	27. I want to go home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Mahariel / Angst

Lyna plodded up the path as it hugged the side of the mountain, breathing labored at the thinness of the air. Born to a nomadic people or not, she was _tired_ of travel, of the endless days of walking, of fighting, dodging or failing to dodge the increasing number of darkspawn flooding Ferelden.

She hadn’t wanted to be a Grey Warden, no matter Marethari’s arguments of the honor of it or that it would save her life. She’d never wanted anything more than to be a hunter, find a husband, have children, be a mother like she’d never had.

She looked up from the ground to see the huge rock face carved with alien runes surrounding two massive doors, dwarven guards standing before them arguing with some shems about something.

Orzammar lay through those doors. Underground. Under all that rock and mountain, with no sunlight, no fresh air.

Not for the first time, she wished Duncan had just left her there to die.


	28. War Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver Hawke, f!Hawke / Gen

“What happened at Ostagar?”

The question took Carver off-guard. Seven years, and she’d never once asked him about it. Despite the terror he’d felt fleeing just head of the hordes, of returning to Lothering to gather them—Mother, Marian, Bethany—and shepherd them away. Seven years he’d lived with the memories, waking him up with nightmares that had barely faded. Irritation colored his response. “Why bring it up now?”

“Something Aveline said,” Marian answered with a shrug. “Wondering if you’d ever mentioned what happened there, and I realized…you never had. Why is that?”

“Because it was terrible. What you do running around Kirkwall with your friends is child’s play compared to what we faced there, the sheer magnitude of the death and horror. Maker will it you never have to experience anything like that.”


	29. Red high heeled "screw me" shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian, f!Hawke, Isabela / Sexual Tension

“Hawke, you look…” Sebastian trailed off as the words failed him.

“Stunning? Gorgeous?” Isabela prompted with a chuckle. “Turn around, let him get a good look at you.”

Marian did as she was told, very carefully. Isabela had swept Marian’s black hair up to an elegant pile atop her head, affixed with two garnet tipped sticks, showing off the long column of her pale neck until it disappeared into the high collar of a red silk dress that clung to every line like it was painted on. Dipping in at the waist, hugging her hips, down to her ankles, where a slit in the back allowed her the room to walk and, as she turned, showed a flash of red high heeled shoes that prompted the precarious twirl.

They reminded him of brothels and courtesans on a level that bypassed his brain and went directly into the past he was trying hard not to recreate. But as Hawke tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, her perfume wafting over him, he realized he was going to have a hard time keeping his vow this night.


	30. la belle dame sans merci

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders, f!Hawke / Angst

It had happened on the day they met, when she’d saved him from the templars. Almost, _almost_ he’d told her about Karl, when she’d sensed his grief and put her hand on his shoulder, touched him despite knowing about Justice.

For six years, he’d followed her, pining for a woman he wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, because of Justice, because of Fenris, because he was driven for a cause.

In the light of the burning chantry, her knife traced a searing path into his heart, and he died, never getting to tell how much he loved her.


	31. The puppy who lost his way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver/Isabela / NSFW
> 
> (Loosely related to 'Growing into his Paws')

The wind creaked through the sails above his head, as Carver leaned against the rail and looked out over the sea. Hands went around his waist, one crawling up his chest and he started, until a familiar pair of breasts pressed against his back.

“You look _far_ too pensive,” Isabela purred into his ear, “for a man who just pulled off one of the greatest rescues in all of history.”

“That’s just it. I’m a Grey Warden, not a revolutionary. We’re supposed to stay out of politics.” He groaned. “Nathaniel is going to _kill_ me.”

“Then one more request for a dying man?” she teased.

He went with her below decks, losing himself in her body, because it was easier than to think about what the future would bring.


	32. Five stages of grief (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke / Angst

_Denial_  
That couldn’t be his mother. It couldn’t be.

 _Anger_  
Flame shot from his staff and hit Quentin square in the chest, the fireball colder than the rage burning in his heart.

 _Bargaining_  
“Maybe there’s something we can do,” he said. He looked at the healer. “Anders?”

 _Depression_  
He sat before the fire while Gamlen raged. It didn’t matter how she’d died, only that she did, and the bastard was dead.

 _Acceptance_  
“You’ve still got family,” Aveline said, her hand on his shoulder as the sat on his bed. “You’re not alone.”


	33. Five stages of grief (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/f!Hawke / Relationship

_Denial_  
It had been two weeks since the hunters had caught up to him this time, long enough that Fenris had thought, just maybe, he had lost them, long enough that he had begun to consider what freedom might mean.

 _Anger_  
It felt good to slide his hand into the man’s chest, to feel his heart beating between his fingers and to squeeze, the look of agony on his face as it turned purple before he died. Poetic, in fact, for he was tired of being chased and cornered.

 _Bargaining_  
She offered up knowledge of a sister he wasn’t aware of, but there was no price Hadriana could pay that would have him spare her life. She had taken too much from him.

 _Depression_  
The mansion was quiet—too quiet—and with Danarius’s death, for the first time felt truly empty. He put the bottle of wine to his lips and drank to fill the void.

 _Acceptance_  
“Perhaps it is time to move forward. I just don’t know where that leads. Do you?”

Hawke took his hand, a tingle, a promise, whispering up his tattoos. “Wherever it leads, I hope it means we’ll stay together.”


	34. Oooh, I'm telling on you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian/f!Hawke, Isabela / Humor
> 
> Written as a sequel to this: http://dragon-age.livejournal.com/444605.html?thread=10289853#t10289853

There was something different waking up this morning. It wasn’t Isabela’s voice ringing, “Hawke!” from downstairs before her booted feet hit the stairs, or the smell of kaff and fresh bread wafting in from the kitchen. It was the extra body in her bed, Sebastian Vael naked and cuddled up to her, and the pleasantly sore feeling in places she hadn’t exercised in a while.

Wait. Isabela.

Hawke elbowed Sebastian in the ribs and hissed, “Wake up!” before she bounced out of the bed to scramble for her clothing.

“What?” he asked sleepily, blinking gummy eyes as he levered himself to a seat, the sheet sliding down his bare chest to pool around his waist.

The door flung open and they froze.

“Really, Sebastian,” Isabela drawled. “If I’d realized the Chantry brothers made house calls, I’d have given up my credit at the Blooming Rose _ages_ ago. Varric’s going to _love_ this.”


	35. Famous last words/ Trust me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian/f!Hawke, Varric / Humor
> 
> Written as a sequel to this: http://dragon-age.livejournal.com/444605.html?thread=10304957#t10304957

“She said ‘Trust me’, what was I supposed to do?”

Varric sighed. “Hawke, this _is_ Isabela we’re talking about. That’s up there with ‘What could go wrong?’”

“But _she’s_ never gotten pregnant!”

“That we know of.”

“I think there’s only one thing _to_ do,” Sebastian said, gathering up Marian’s hands in his with grim determination. “We have to get married.”

“WHAT?”


	36. At no point, during your rambling, incoherent response, did you come close to anything that could be considered a rational thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian/f!Hawke / Humor, Romance
> 
> Written as a sequel to this: http://dragon-age.livejournal.com/444605.html?thread=10340797#t10340797

“In stupid fairy tales, they tend to get married because they’re in love,” Sebastian pointed out with a faint quirk of a smile. “The babies tend to come later, during the ‘happily ever after’.”

Hawke sputtered. “Yes, well, maybe…that’s not the _point_!”

“It’s not?” he asked. “Because it sounded to me as if you were the one using ‘fairy tales’ as a reason not to get married. And I was simply pointing out, by that reasoning, that ‘being in love’ is frequently a good reason.”

She paused before she threw the crockery mug at his head, slamming it down on the table and blushed. “Stop trying to confuse me with your logic. Are you saying you love me?”


	37. I work for the company. But don't let that fool you, I'm really an okay guy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Hawke, Cullen / Gen

Her heart pounded in her throat as she looked down the blade of Cullen’s sword. It was one thing to have him raise it against Meredith to protect her from being killed, and quite another thing to have the Knight-Captain of the Kirkwall templars use it as a threat for something still bad but short of death. Say, impressing her into the Circle, or making her Tranquil. The knuckles of her hand turned white as she clenched her staff, the incantation for Winter’s Grasp circling through her mind like a mabari chasing its tail, waiting to be loosed.

He stood motionless, eyes narrowed.

Her eyes widened, understanding the only acknowledgement. She withdrew, along with her brother and friends, to disappear into legend.


	38. That's physically impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders, Isabela/Fenris / Humor

“If you’re going to make us suffer through listening to every sordid detail of your sexual escapades,” Anders said through gritted teeth, “at least try and make them credible. I’m a healer, the human body doesn’t _work_ that way.”

“Oh, really?” Isabela said, eyes flashing at the challenge. She rose to her feet and grabbed Fenris’s arm. “He doesn’t believe me, let’s show him. Everyone, clear the table, and Corff! Bring me a bottle of wine, the largest you got, and some chicken skin.” She reached across to pluck at Anders’s pauldrons, brandishing it as she met his eyes. “And a feather.”

He fled.


	39. That's not my name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke/Anders / Humor/Angst

“Anders…” Garrett drawled.

“That’s not my name.”

Garrett blinked. “What?”

“Anders. It’s not my real name. You know that, don’t you?”

“Er, no?”

Anders rolled over and kissed him, a sadness tinging the smile he gave. “My name is Westley. I inherited the name from the last man, but he wasn’t Anders, either. His name was Ryan, and died after escaping from Amaranthine. We’re just a long line of mages who believe in freedom, but it’s easier for the people to remember one name, instead of eight.”

“ _Eight_?” Garrett blurted out in astonishment.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “There were a lot of escape attempts. And now I’m passing the name on to you.”


	40. Hold on to hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/f!Hawke / Romance

As Fenris rushed out of her room, her mind reeled. Fingers wrapped around the edge of the bed, fingertips digging into the ticking. _Was it something I did?_ She asked herself. _Was it something I said? What did I do wrong?_ Self-doubt and disappointment crushed her as she curled up in her bed, still warm from his body, and didn’t sleep.

The next morning, Aveline brought word that Viscount Dumar’s son had been kidnapped by the qu’nari, and that a mercenary group had been hired to fetch him back--one Aveline didn’t trust.

Marian knocked on the door of the dilapidated mansion, not expecting he would answer. She was turning away when he did. “Yes?” he asked.

Around his wrist was her red scarf.


	41. If at first you don't succeed...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, m!Hawke, Dog / Humor

Carver squatted before the mabari pup and waved the scrap of jerky before it. “Come on, boy,” he cajoled. The puppy took one tentative step forward, sniffing towards the meat, then looked questioningly at Carver. “That’s it. Come on, you know want it. Tasty, tasty food.” He took a bite off the leathery treat and chewed on it, offering the end out.

The puppy took a second step, then another, neck stretching out, mouth opening as it neared the jerky...

“Come, Hafner,” Garrett’s voice called out.

The pup’s ears perked up. He barked once and bound after his master joyfully.

Carver glared over to where his brother and the puppy were, folding his arms over his knobby knees. He’d _almost_ had him.

Maybe next time.


	42. No right answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leandra, implied m!Hawke/Isabela / Humor

“Garrett,” Mother began at breakfast the next morning as she buttered her toast. “Did you have company over last night? Because I could have sworn I heard that pirate friend of yours saying something about dueling a man with a very broad sword, and then something about being boarded hard and fast, but I couldn’t quite make it out.”


	43. What do you do with cracked gems?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders, Dworkin / Gen

“It’s finally finished,” Dworkin said proudly. “Thanks to all those flawed gems you brought me. I would have never thought it would work, but I guess magic does things not even dwarf engineering can think of.” He put the bejeweled contraption into the special box he’d made for it and handed it over--it was metal, and so therefore heavy. “Just put the blackpowder into the reservoir, and light it up, just like the model.”

Anders clapped the dwarf on the shoulder, giving him a thin smile. “Thanks. As always, you’re the best.”


	44. Don't stop believing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen / Gen

Cullen had lived through Uldred’s coup at the Ferelden Circle, being captured and tortured by abominations and demons, having the Circle freed by King Alistair, the qunari ransacking Kirkwall, Viscount Dumar’s death, and the Chantry being blown to Kingdom Come by an apostate Grey Warden. All bad things, things that could crush a man’s spirit...or a woman’s.

But when Meredith ordered him to kill the mages throwing themselves at Hawke’s feet for mercy, he said, “The Right has always been a last resort, when every mage involved was beyond salvation. The situation was far more dire in Ferelden’s Circle, and yet many mages were saved. We could still do as much here.”

He had faith. Not only in the Maker, but in humanity.


	45. Rumors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Cousland, Fergus Cousland, implied f!Cousland/Nathaniel Howe / Gen

Rumors had followed her for as long as Elissa could remember. There were all the rumors about her and Rory—Ser Gilmore. Then the talk that she, rather than Fergus, would make a better teyrna of Highever. That her refusal of Thomas’s proposal was part of the insult that spurred Arl Rendon into his coup. That the Grey Wardens (which she had been a part of) had betrayed King Cailan on the battlefield. That she’d been King Alistair’s lover, before he’d married the Queen. That she’d consorted with apostates and blood mages to fight the Blight, that she’d resorted to dark magic to survive slaying the archdemon.

The only rumor she wished back was the one that brought Fergus to Vigil’s Keep, his hands on his hips as he glared daggers at her in the hall. “You and Nathaniel Howe? Really?”


	46. It's like trying to herd cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Cousland / Humor

Aedan brought his shield up in a defensive position and swore as the darkspawn advanced. Alistair charged in, quickly surrounded by genlocks until a fireball landed in their midst, bowling over friend and foe alike. An arrow took the hurlock before him in the throat where it crumpled and left a clear line of sight for the emissary to fire an acid green bolt square in his chest.

After the last darkspawn fell, Aedan panted to catch his breath and glared at his three companions. “Seriously, guys, if I’m leading this party, then why is it you’re always off doing your own thing instead of the tactics I’ve given you?”


	47. Once upon a time I didn’t give a damn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morrigan, Demon Dragon Baby / Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Tweaked on 09-Jan-15 to include new info from DA: Inquisition)

“Once upon a time,” Morrigan began, “there lived a young girl in a swamp with her cruel stepmother. She didn’t know at the time the stepmother was cruel, for she was the only mother the girl had ever known. The stepmother taught her magic, how to turn into different kinds of creatures, how to listen to the wind and the water, and how not to care about anything, because anything you cared for could be taken away.”

“One day, she had stolen a beautiful mirror from a lady in a carriage. The young girl had thought it was beautiful, and cherished that mirror. The cruel stepmother had taken the mirror and smashed it to shards.”

“Until one day, she went out into the world and met a handsome young man. He was a nobleman and a prince, but he fell in love with the girl, and all unknowing, he gave her a lovely gold mirror as a gift, almost identical the one she had had as a child.”

“Like these stories go, he had to go to war, but before he left, he gave the girl a gift more precious than anything: a child, a little boy, just like you. And before he left her, he kissed her lips and said good-bye, but went on to become a hero. The end.”

Kieran frowned, his toddler’s brow furrowed. “Is that a good story?”

Morrigan kissed his hair, cuddling him tightly as she rested her cheek against his head. “Yes, love. It’s a very good story.”


	48. The worst betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair, f!Aeducan / Gen

It wasn’t Cailan sending him to the top of the tower at Ostagar instead of fighting alongside Duncan. It wasn’t Teryn Loghain sounding the retreat instead of advancing, as he was supposed to. It wasn’t Arl Rendon sending assassins after them, or Loghain sending a blood mage to assassinate Arl Eamon, or Arl Eamon asking him to betray his vows to the Grey Wardens to become King.

No, the greatest betrayal came when Sereda stood before the Landsmeet, refusing to meet his eyes, and said, “Make him a Warden.”


	49. Last of the Wardens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair, Wynne, m!Mahariel / Angst

Theron looked so peaceful, Alistair could hardly believe he was dead, no matter what Riordan had said. Then again, he had _never_ looked peaceful for as long as Alistair had known him: first bitter, then shellshocked, then angry, then resigned, ever since he’d had to kill his friend who had become a ghoul. Maybe the expression of serenity should be the big tip-off it was real.

“Alistair,” Wynne’s gentle voice broke into his reverie, and he started, turning away from the sight of Zevran mourning. “The battle isn’t over, are you going to lead the fight?”

“Me?” he asked with surprise. His head snapped towards the Dalish elf’s husk of a body, eyes going wide.

It didn’t take Wynne’s words, they only drove home the realization that dawned. “You’re the last of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. What would you have us do?”

He hadn’t wanted to be King. It looked like he was going to be Warden-Commander instead.


	50. Your mouth is talking. You may want to look to that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders, Isabela, Fenris / Gen

“I don’t know why Hawke keeps him around,” Anders grumbled, turning his mug of ale on the table. Justice may not allow him to drink, but coming to the Hanged Man was just about the only socializing he got, out of his patients and the occasional tag-along with Hawke, and the mug gave him something to do with his hands.

“Because he likes him?” Isabela speculated.

“He’s clearly insane,” Anders pointed out, warming to his topic. “He used us to get the hunters off his back, he hates mages, and yet he works with Hawke.” Isabela’s eyes went wide, and her eyebrow quirked. He added, “He’s just going to hurt him someday.”

“The same could be said of you, mage,” Fenris’s voice came from right behind Anders, making him jump. He threw an accusing look at Isabela, who gave him a diffident shrug in return.

Anders twisted in his seat to look up at Fenris, aware, at his looming, of how vulnerable he was in this position. “I would never hurt Hawke. Ever.”

“Right,” Fenris said, sliding into a seat across the table from him. “Just like you would never kill another innocent mage. Ever.”


	51. Why does this always happen to me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seneschal Bran / Gen

Even before Bran entered the office, he knew something was going to be gone. He looked around and saw nothing out of place, but by habit, went to the strongbox in the back. He’d invested in more and more expensive and elaborate locks over the years, and it never failed that anytime Hawke and her merry band of miscreants passed through to see the Viscount, he’d be robbed.

This time was no different. Scuff marks marred the shiny brass around the keyhole before he inserted the key, and the contents were gone.

And there was nothing he could do about it, she was the Viscount’s golden girl. All he could do was grit his teeth and bear it. Why Hawke would want an old moth-eaten scarf and a frayed fragment of rope was beyond him. But if it made her happy, he’d keeping filling the chest with junk.


	52. Calling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver Hawke / Angst

Carver had survived a lot of things. He’d made it out of Ostagar, when Maker knew how much of the army didn’t. He’d escaped the destruction of Lothering, and it could easily have been him, instead of Bethany, who’d died at the hands of the ogre, but for a quirk of fate, if he’d been the one closer to Mother. ( _Was she at the Maker’s side? Would he join her there?_ ) He hadn’t died during the Joining, the countless missions over the years, or that day in the Gallows, long ago.

‘ _Nothing is certain but death and taxes_ ’, his father used to joke. Nathaniel had amended it, ‘ _and the Calling_ ’.

He’d gone years before, earlier than everyone had expected. Carver still missed him. Nathaniel had taught him a lot, not least of which was to let go the anger he’d held onto for so long.

He dipped the freshly cut tip of the quill into the bottle of ink and paused, hovering it over the parchment as he schooled his thoughts and began to write.

 _Garrett, By the time you receive this, I’ll be gone, but I didn’t want to leave this world without thanking you for being my brother and saving my life, even when my behavior didn’t always justify it. I was an ass, and I’m sorry._


	53. Look around we're living with the lost and found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke, Sebastian, unnamed party member / Gen

“You seem to have misplaced this,” Hawke said, offering the parchment scroll to the strange man loitering purposelessly in the Hightown market.

“Oh, thank you! I’ve been looking all over it!” he said. Coin was exchanged, and the man wandered off.

Sebastian stared. “How does she—”

“Don’t ask.”


	54. guilty pleasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian, f!Hawke / Gen

“Hawke, what are you doing here?”

Sebastian’s question brought her head around, unconsciously ducking her face away from meeting his gaze. “Praying.”

He joined her to look up at the faceless statue, before sliding his glance sidelong. “Is it safe for you to do that here?”

“Probably not.” She felt vulnerable without her staff, left purposefully at home, and crossed her arms over her chest. “But I’ve always felt better, whenever I’ve been troubled, to come to the Chantry and pray.”

His eyes widened. “Hawke, I never knew you had such faith. And you…you’re…” He stumbled over the words.

She looked at him directly, chin tilted high. “A mage?” she asked softly. “The Maker created all things, didn’t he create magic, too?”


	55. Hawke and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke, Gamlen, implied m!Hawke/Fenris / Gen/Angst

He’d thought the day had been bad enough.

He’d woken up to the crushing memory of Fenris running out on him after they’d finally given in and had sex. He’d broken his favorite mug during breakfast. He’d forgotten he’d left his favorite set of blades at the weaponsmith to be sharpened, and had to make do with a second rate pair. He blamed that for getting the shit kicked out of him by the Antivan assassins who had waylaid him on the way to Merrill’s. Only to have her throw him out on his ear. He’d had to stop Anders from nearly killing an innocent mage and trudged up the stairs to answer the summons of the Viscount, to discover a qunari delegation had gone missing. Confronting the guardsman had ended in a brawl, just before he made the effort, despite his smarting heart, to help Aveline with Donnic, only to have the man get pissed off—and thinking _he_ was the one interested. As if. He was swearing off men.

And then he went home, to find Gamlen in his hallway. And that wasn’t even the worse part.

“Where is your mother? She didn’t show up for our weekly dinner.”


	56. Parting gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morrigan, implied Morrigan/m!Cousland / Gen

Morrigan was unused to receiving gifts. What she received from Flemeth had been the necessities for survival, and what pretty baubles she had possessed in her life, Flemeth had stripped from her when found.

Having someone, especially a handsome, attractive man whom she would one day try to bed, give her gifts was…a new experience. And heady. From the Feastday sweetmeats to the necklace he said looked nice with her eyes, the hand puppet Alistair glared at suspiciously to the lovely mirror that so resembled the one from her childhood, Aedan fairly spoiled her.

But it was his last gift, given in the heat of the moment, that she would treasure the most.


	57. A civilized weapon, for a more civilized age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Tabris, Nathaniel Howe, Anders / Gen

“It’s beautiful, Nathaniel,” Kallian said, handling the restored bow with admiration. The grain glowed after the oils he’d lovingly worked into the wood as they’d sat around the fire in the evenings, the gentle swoops of the recurve polished of the nicks and scratches from rough handling, the braided string smooth from the wax.

“Would you like to try it out?” he offered.

Her eyes went wide. “Are you…sure? It’s your weapon.”

“If anyone else can handle it, it would be you.”

With a flash of grin, she drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it, feeling the coiled tension in the draw, the singing as she released to hit the target dead center. A second one joined the first, and she gave a happy sigh.

Only to have a streak of fire slam into the target so it burst into flame.

They turned to stare at Anders, who was leaning nonchalantly on his staff. “A bow’s nice, but nothing like having a good blaster at your side.”


	58. Unforgiven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela, m!Hawke / Gen

Isabela let out a breath as the last of the qunari left the throne room. “ _That_ was amazing,” she said, coming up beside him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “ _You_ are amaz—“

To her shock, mild-mannered Garrett whirled and slapped her arm away. “Just because you came back does not mean everything is right between us. You _lied_ to me. Not just once, but for years. You nearly got this entire city destroyed. We are not okay. We are _definitely_ not okay.”

She did what she always did: she fled. It was another three years before she had the balls to come back and ask his forgiveness.


	59. You can keep doing that forever, the dog is NEVER going to move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, Bethany, Dog / Gen

Carver pushed. He pulled. He tugged, he shoved, he jerked, he yanked, he yelled, he screamed, he hollered, and still Hafner refused to budge.

“He’s never going to move,” Bethany said loftily from her perch up in a tree, delicately nibbling an apple while she watched with bemusement.

“I’ll make him move,” Carver growled, getting a fresh grip on the mabari’s shoulders and leaning his weight in.

“Garrett told him to stay.”

Carver swore, then kicked at at a tuft of grass near the hound. “I am _not_ too young to look at it!”

Hafner threw him a withering look and snorted.


	60. Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Tabris/Nathaniel Howe, implied past f!Tabris/Alistair / Gen

They filled the receiving room with their heady scent, blooms of red and white and pink, yellow and peach and lavender, even a few of blue and magenta and something nearing black. In wreaths and bouquets, in vases and in bowls, on every surface from the door to the Arl’s chair.

Kallian made a gesture with her hand. “Get rid of all these.”

Nathaniel quirked an eyebrow as he swept his gaze along the morass as the servants scurried to clear it out. “The King seems rather persistent.”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s finally realized the mistake he made.” She grabbed his hand to lace fingers, garnering a surprised look down at the twining from him. “That hound has left the kennel. I’ve moved on.”


	61. Keep a light burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leandra, m!Hawke / Gen

It had started out as a practicality, a night when she and Gamlen had been startled out of sleep by the sound of someone crashing into a table, and the muttered curses of two men. Gamlen had come to the doorway of his room brandishing his wallop mallet, only to discover her two sons looking sheepish.

“Garrett! Carver!” she admonished with a hiss.

“Sorry, Mother,” Garrett had said. Then in afterthought, “Uncle Gamlen.”

With a little money coming in from their escapades, late night or no, Leandra had thought it worth it to keep a small candle lit for them on the table to prevent any further late night bumblings in the dark.

She slouched in her chair before the fire, her shawl closed tight around her shoulder, staring into the flame of that little candle, waiting to see her sons home from the Deep Roads.


	62. Shelter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/m!Hawke / Gen

Rain fell in torrents, lightning sundered the skies, thunder boomed through the heavens. It fit Fenris’s mood, dark and turbulent and unsettled, ever since the night he’d spent with Hawke, the night he’d fled from him. He itched, trapped inside the mansion, and stalked towards the door, intent on escaping into the maelstrom, to feel the downpour pelt his scalp, water run down his skin, as if it might wash him clean.

The door flung open hard, he stopped abruptly at finding a bedraggled Hawke standing on the doorstep, under the thin protection of a narrow shelf above. Hawke spun on his heel in surprise, expression turning sheepish as he melted into the wall and out of Fenris’s path.

“What are you doing here?” Fenris asked stupidly.

“I was on the way back from the de Launcet’s,” he explained. “When the storm started. I was just waiting for it to lessen a bit.”

Standing out on the stoop, rather than knock on the door. Fenris felt a pang of…something. It was feeling, and it was complicated, and he didn’t want to analyze it.

Water dripped from Hawke’s black hair onto his nose, sending a rivulet zig-zagging next to the corner of his mouth and down his chin. Fenris watched it, fascinated, then tore his attention away from it to meet Hawke’s eyes. “I have some wine,” he blurted out.

Hawke’s smile outshone the gloom. “That would be lovely.”


	63. Don't want to be reminded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aveline/Donnic / Gen

Hawke stormed out of Aveline’s office with that hideous green shield on her arm. It was ludicrous, really, with her robes flapping around her ankles, but where else were you going to put that sort of thing?

Aveline sighed and sunk to a seat on the edge of her desk, fingertips going to her forehead. She didn’t know why she’d gotten so angry at Hawke, except that she’d been so insistent on getting her a better shield, one that wasn’t dented and damaged like Wesley’s had been, and then tried to give her that gaudy piece of work dedicated to a legend she couldn’t stand. She would be looking at ‘The Shield of Ser Aveline’ stamped on the inside of it all the time, not the rest of the world.

A knock sounded at her door, and she lifted her head. “Yes?”

Donnic stepped through, and Aveline felt her heart give a little flip-flop. “Captain, I’m heading out to patrol.”

“Be safe, guardsman,” she said, an uncharacteristic catch in her throat.

Maybe not having Wesley’s shield around wasn’t such a bad thing after all.


	64. Honey & lemon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Hawke, Orana, implied f!Hawke/Fenris / Gen

It wasn’t often that the Champion of Kirkwall was felled by a foe, but this summer cold was utterly kicking her ass.

She cracked gummy eyes at the sound of the door squeaking open to spy Orana carrying a tray, both the bowl and the mug sending up curls of steam. After recovering from a coughing fit, willing her lungs into behaving, she took the mug to try and soothe her throat and nearly dropped it. The flavor wasn’t like any tea she could remember drinking before, floral sweet but also tangy.

“What is this?” Marian rasped, staring into the innocuous looking contents.

“Tea,” Orana replied dutifully.

Marian scowled, snapping peevishly, “I know it’s tea. But it’s not _normal_ tea.”

“Oh!” Orana exclaimed. “This is the tea Papa made for me when I was sick when I was little, back in Tevinter. Master Fenris gave me the lemons and honey for it.”

“Fenris?” Marian asked in a shocked daze. “What’s a lemon?”

“It’s a fruit that grows in the north, it’s much too cold down here for them. I miss them, they’re much too expensive to buy in the market. You should drink it all,” she said with encouragement. “You’ll feel ever so much better for it.”

Marian sank back into her pillows, sipping at the strange tea, and smiled slowly. Orana was right, although not for the reason she thought. She did feel better already.


	65. What do you think it means?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Cousland/Alistair / Romance

Elissa Cousland, Warden-Commander, walked into her office at Vigil’s Keep as she had every morning for the last five years with Varel dogging her heels. She’d slept terribly the night before, and the lack of sleep had made her grouchy. She put a hand to her face as she closed her eyes, inhaling deeply in an old trick, a _very_ old templar trick to find calm, as she fell into her chair.

When she re-opened her eyes, she froze.

Atop petitions and reports, correspondence and receipts piled on the desk lay a red rose. She focused in on the blemishes, the way one petal was torn, the darker spot of bruising on another, but those were the insignificant details to avoid the larger one.

“Varel, how did this get here?”

Her heart fell when he said, “I put it there.” Then rose again when he went on. “A man showed up early this morning claiming to be a Grey Warden and asked if I would deliver this first before my message. He said he’s sorry, he hopes you’ll forgive him, and he’s in the receiv—“

She didn’t hear another word, as she tore out of the office at an undignified run. Joy brought laughter bubbling up from a well she long thought dry, and she threw her head back to whoop, scaring senior wardens, recruits, and servants alike. The door of the Arl’s receiving room opened with a crash, and she skidded to an awkward halt in the fresh rushes on the floor several paces from a shabby, but clean at least, Alistair, who eyed her nervously.

“Uh, hi,” he said.

She closed the distance and punched him in the jaw.

“Ow,” he said as he brought his head back to true, a hand going up to rub at the point of impact. “I probably deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I take it you, uh, got my message?”

“The seneschal passed it along.”

He stared at her, a stare that slowly turned into a study, eyes traveling down her face to the rest of her then back up again. “Look, I know I messed up, and I probably don’t deserve it, but…I’m a Grey Warden. A Fereldan Grey Warden. I’d like to come back, if you’ll take me, even if it’s just to clean the latrines or inventory the cheese stores or—“

“Yes.”

Her interruption brought him up short. “…yes? Just like that?”

“Yes,” she repeated, a smile breaking on her face. She grabbed him by his shirt front and pulled him to her, crushing his mouth with a kiss.

“Oh,” he said in a daze when they broke apart. “Right. Yes.”


	66. Last one standing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The DA2 gang / Gen

Merrill slept with her head pillowed on the crook of her elbow. Fenris had faceplanted on his crossed arms. Isabela sat slumped in her chair, head tilted and resting against the back, while Varric had disappeared from view entirely.

Marian eyed Sebastian blearily over her mug, drawling, “Y’know what they say about the last man standing in a drinking contest, right?”

He lifted an elegant eyebrow. “No, what do they say, Hawke?”

“’Who’s going to clean up the mess?’” she said with a giggle, before her eyes rolled up and her head fell with a thump to the table.

Sebastian sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, raking his gaze over his unconscious companions and wondering how he was going to get them all home safely. Penance. This was penance.


	67. “You’ve never seen snow?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris, f!Hawke / Gen

Fenris stopped dead at the threshold of his mansion. Marian held up half a step ahead of him and turned back to see his nostrils flared and eyes wide as he looked out. Cold wind blew through the door way, causing her to shiver. “What is it?” she asked, wanting to get moving.

“What is that?”

She turned and looked around, brow furrowing as she searched out the source of his discomfit. Failing, she asked, “What is what?”

“That white stuff. On the ground. Did the mages do that? Some kind of cold spell?”

A laugh escaped her, one she clapped off with a hand when she saw his expression darken and the scowl that formed at her mocking. “No, Fenris, it’s snow. It happens here in the winter.” She took another step outside and scooped up a handful of it, packed it into a ball, and tossed it at him. He jerked out of the way, but it caught him on the shoulder and exploded in a spray of powder, that set her to giggling once again, especially for the displeased look on his face.

“I am not convinced it’s not magic.”

“It isn’t,” she assured him, the corners of her mouth quirking as another thought struck her. “But you’re going to really want to find some shoes.”


	68. A day without sunshine is like, you know, night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric, f!Hawke, Aveline, implied Bethany / Angst

Varric wasn’t normally a gloomy guy. A realistic optimist, he liked to call himself. Giant spiders, dragons, blood mages, friends who _were_ blood mages, friends who may or may not be abominations, nothing phased him much. Bartrand locking him in the Deep Roads pissed him off right enough, but Hawke’s method of passing the time as they searched for the exit—inventing more and more painful and colorful methods of paying his brother back for the betrayal—had him smiling. He might have even whistled, if he wasn’t afraid of the darkspawn finding them.

But as they finally stumbled out of the cave mouth to ‘outside’ and ‘fresh air’, stars speckled the moonless sky. A dark night, like his heart. Like Hawke’s. Fitting.

He looked sidelong to see Hawke wiping tears from her face, and Aveline with a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said in a rough voice. “I have to tell Mother.”


	69. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good sword at your side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke, Meredith / Gen

Meredith was talking. Garrett didn’t know exactly where she was—the courtyard of the Gallows was, politely speaking, a madhouse, with red lightning criss-crossing the space, the clash and clang of battle, templars, mages, and his companions scattered about screaming, and giant fucking _statues_ walking around—but he twisted his head this way and that, trying to follow her voice to its source. He’d seen a lot of weird shit in his time in Kirkwall, but that one took the cake—and it was all Meredith’s fault. Somewhere.

He finally spied her standing in the center of the maelstrom (of course), eyes blazing (no, really) with a hellish light, that Maker-damned lyrium idol resembling a blade clutched in both her hands. She was not unmarked—black blood splashed across her gaunt cheeks, the scarlet sword of the templars on her breastplate—and he saw his opening. With a roar, he charged forward and plunged the Blade of Mercy in and up to catch her heart (or at least where she must have once had one). In that moment of meeting her shocked expression, he smiled and spat, “So much for your Demon-spawned faith and your fancy magic weapon. Defeated by a plain man with his plain sword. To the _Void_ with you.”

She fell to her knees and burned.


	70. If you pickpocket me one more damn time...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathaniel Howe, Sigrun, Oghren / Gen

“Here’s your knife back, Nathaniel.”

Nathaniel took the hilt from Sigrun’s hand, careful not to cut her palm, although the thought was tempting. “I wish you’d stop doing that,” he muttered with a glare.

“Can’t help it,” she said cheerfully, “I have to keep in practice.”

“Next time, I’m going to stick a pair of Oghren’s socks in my pocket for you to steal.” She laced her hands over her mouth to stifle a giggle, and he raised an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”

“You. With a pair of Oghren’s socks in your pocket. Why would I steal those? And you’ll have to deal with your pants smelling like dead bronto all day.”

“Hey! I heard that!”

Nathaniel buried his face in his hand.


	71. new hire orientation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Awakening Crew, implied Anders/Nathaniel / Gen

The Warden-Commander stood before the latest batch of recruits on the practice field, pitching his voice to carry from months of practice.

“Good morning, everyone. My name is Theron, but you can call me Commander.” A nervous chuckle went up from the ranks, which Theron waited to subside before continuing. “Yes, I’m the Hero of Ferelden, and as you can see, I’m an elf. I’m Dalish. I won’t call you _shemlen_ , if you don’t call me knife-ear, and if you _do_ call me knife-ear, and I find out about it, I will make that literal with you, understood?”

“This,” he said, starting down the line of people standing next to him, “is Velanna. And she will eat your heart out if you call either of us that.”

Velanna smiled sweetly.

“Anders,” he went on. “He might be able to charm the pants off all of you. I recommend against it.”

“Heyyyy,” Anders protested.

Theron quirked an eyebrow at him but moved on. “Nathaniel Howe. Yes, his father killed both the Teyrn of Highever and the Arl of Denerim during the war, but his father’s crimes are his own. He’s why you don’t want to let Anders charm the pants off you.”

Nathaniel smirked.

“Oghren,” Theron said, stepping to the next person. “Formerly of Orzammar and my boon companion while fighting the Blight.”

Oghren belched.

“Don’t let him lure you into a drinking contest. And finally,” he said, letting a wry smile creep onto his face. “This is Sigrun.” He slipped behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “She’s the lost and found. If you think you’ve lost anything, come find her and ask for it back.

Now. If you have any questions, talk to them. Dismissed.”

The recruits filed away, led by the Senior Wardens separated by their skills, but Theron held Sigrun back. “Speaking of which,” he turned to look down at her, “can I have my ring back?”

Sigrun grinned. “Oh sure. Sorry, Commander.”


	72. I kill people. It's what I do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Aeducan/Zevran, Bhelen Aeducan / Gen

The Assembly floor was in chaos, with Pyral Harrowmont’s men locked in combat with Bhelen’s supporters, but all Duran wanted to do was find his brother.

“Bhelen!” he bellowed, slashing aside a Silent Sister wearing Bhelen’s colors on her sleeve as he waded through the fray, searching.

He found him as he pulled a sword from a slumping guard, their eyes locking across the space. Bhelen’s lip curled back in a sneer. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”

“So have I,” Duran growled back, squeezing the handle of his axe as he closed the gap.

Bhelen took two strides before a look of surprise came over him. His lips parted to spill blood down his chin, and he fell to his knees, then forward, revealing Zevran pulling his sanguine blades back while he sought a new opponent.

After it was all over, Duran found his brother’s corpse and kicked it for good measure. Zevran joined him, and Duran turned to look up at him with a glare. “It should have been me.”

Zevran shrugged gracefully. “You wanted him dead, no? And as you know, I am very good at making people dead. And now he is.”

“It should have been me,” Duran repeated stubbornly.

“Yes, well,” Zevran said with a wave of his hand, before kissing Duran’s cheek. “You can punish me for it later.”


	73. Legacy (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OC, Carver Hawke, implied f!Hawke/Fenris / Gen

There were many things passed down to Malcolm that he cherished beyond meaning. The staff hand-carved by his grandfather and namesake. The Book of Shartan that Father had given him, that he’d learned to read from as well. The amulet from Mother that she said had been crafted from the fire duct of a High Dragon that she herself had slain.

Uncle Carver stood before him, grim-faced and grey-haired, his Grey Warden’s armor polished to a high gleam, bringing another he wished he could pass by. “Her blood opened the final seal,” he explained, “yours is needed to re-bind Corypheus.”

Half the world was destroyed, and a half-elven apostate was its only chance to be saved.

Great.


	74. Widow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela, Sebastian, implied m!Hawke/Isabela / Gen

The attack on Starkhaven began not at dawn, but at night, when people were weary from their day of labor, at home with their families or at the tavern with a pint or five, relaxed and bleary and unprepared for barges set afire and rammed into the docks. Full of pitch and wood and canvas, it quickly went up in flames and spread to the rat’s warren of the poorer than poor before the fire brigades could react.

Sebastian ordered them rebuilt and they gleamed, golden and new, to the merchants who came up the river to trade with the most important of the Free Marches’ city states.

Six months later, they came at dawn, to burn again.

A year, and it was at noon.

A week later, a woman stood on the docks to treat with the Prince.

“Why are you doing this, Isabela?” he asked under the white flag of truce. “My quarrel isn’t with you.”

“You made it my quarrel when you killed Hawke over your idiotic and constant need for vengeance. I swear, you’re twice as bad as Anders ever was about it.”

Sebastian’s blue eyes turned icy. “Do not speak his name here.”

“Hawke was too soft on you when you started spouting your stupid threats,” she said with a glint in her eye. “I have no such qualms.”


	75. Hawke blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke / Gen

_“My magic will serve what’s best in me, not that which is most base.”_

“My magic will serve what’s best in me, not that which is most base.”

Best in me…

Not that which is most base…

Father’s words rang through Garrett’s head like an alarm bell over the pounding of his heart. He’d had the credo drummed into his head for as long as he’d shown magical talent, and it pained him, physically, to violate his father’s premiere tenant.

But as he drew his knife across his inner elbow and smeared the blood across the bridge of his nose, facing the Arishok across the floor of the Viscount’s receiving room and feeling the surge of power boil through his veins, he hoped his father would understand that sometimes serving what was best required doing something base.


	76. I don't need your civil war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra, f!Hawke/Fenris / Gen

Cassandra caught up to her in Rivain.

“Champion?” she asked with her Orlesian-tainted Nevarran accent.

Marian didn't respond.

“Marian Hawke? I know it’s you.”

She sighed and turned her head, finding not only Cassandra there, but Sister Nightingale, the Divine’s pet Seeker, and a handful of men and women dressed in unremarkable clothing. For all that, after years of living in Kirkwall, Marian could sense the righteous aura of True Believer radiating off them in palpable waves. “And you must be Cassandra.”

The Seeker startled. “How do you know my name?”

“I have sources, too,” Marian said with subtle inflection. “The Chantry has no jurisdiction here, which is why I chose it. Please go away, and let me finish enjoying my evening.”

Two fists came down on the table as Cassandra leaned forward. “I can’t let you do that. You are the only person who might be able to help us stop this war.”

Beside her, Fenris stirred and Marian stilled him with a hand to his forearm. Looking back at Cassandra, she narrowed her eyes. “What gave you the impression I care a wit about your war? You people hunted my family down for decades, you killed my sister, and you drove one of my best friends to a terrible act. For all I can tell, you’re reaping what you so richly and unjustly sowed.” She reached up and flicked a piece of lint off her shoulder, the straps of her dagger harnesses creaking as she moved. “Now, please leave, or I’ll have to demonstrate to you and your companions why I earned the respect of a qunari Arishok, and I really like the establishment decor as it is.”


	77. Favorite memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke, Carver Hawke, OC / Fluff

It hadn’t always been his favorite memory. In fact, there’d been a time when he’d remembered it with churning dread. That had been the day when he’d gone from doted upon only child to big brother, two years of little attention from Mother and less attention from Father (saved only by the fact that his talent had manifested, and Father had been forced to split his time helping to care for the twins with beginning to teach Garrett the rudiments of magic because of that time he’d accidentally set the crib on fire), followed by even more years where he was half-expected to fend for himself and to help Mother out around the house. Then there’d been the throwing and the hitting and the kicking and the fights and the running away and all the times he wasn’t allowed to strike back, because his anger could kill without a weapon.

But with his newborn son in his arms for the first time, it all came rushing back, that moment when he’d been six, and Father had made him sit all the way back in the big rocking chair before he had put Carver on his lap, showing him how to put his arms to support his head and keep him from squirming off, and how very scared Garrett had been that he would drop him or squish him or otherwise hurt this, his baby brother.

“He looks like you,” Carver said with a sniff.

A smile turned up the corner of Garrett’s mouth. “He looks like you did when you were a baby.”

“What? I was never that... _squashed_.”

Garrett chuckled. “That, and more so.”

Carver harrumphed indignantly.

It had been his favorite memory.


	78. I love a man in uniform

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Female Warrior/Templar / Romance

She hadn’t meant to fall in love with him. He was a templar, for Andraste’s sake, and everyone knew they never married. Hardly ever married. They were all but wedded to their duty, their calling, really, and having a wife, children, a family, would always be secondary to that.

Then again, she’d never imagined doing any of that herself, either. She was a soldier, a warrior, who had time for the domestic things?

But whenever she saw the flaming sword on a breastplate around town, her heart beat a little faster, thinking it might be him.

He saved her from herself. “Would you…like to take a walk with me?”

She admitted it to herself. It was hopeless to resist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could be Aveline/Wesley or f!Hawke/Cullen--take your pick :)


	79. healing touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders/Hawke / NSFW

Justice’s emotions were limited in scope. He knew dedication and determination and drive, but even living in, co-existing with, Ander’s mind, he couldn’t grasp doubt. Regret. Loneliness.

Justice did not approve, but this night, Anders didn’t care. He needed the feel of Hawke’s mouth moving against his in the kind of kiss that felt like it could go on forever, body pressed against his, shoulders to toes, hands running along his back, over his chest, across bare skin, touch leaving fire in their wake. Balm to his battered soul, desire, want, _need_ brought him solace.


	80. "I don't fear you." "Really? You should."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Surana, Sten / Gen

“Why are we here?” Sten demanded

Neria planted her staff in the rocky ground and leaned on it. She was tired, both from the immediate exertion and from living under the constant fear of attack: from bandits, from blight wolves, from darkspawn. “Because we need to find Andraste’s ashes if we’re to have any hope of curing Arl Eamon, and he’s the best hope we have of gathering the human tribes together to face the Blight.”

“We’re wasting our time,” he growled, pulling out the massive broadsword _she’d_ given him. “If you will not lead us to fight the Blight, then I will.”

The affront of it all made her angry. “I _am_ leading.”

“I was a fool. A small thing like you, bas saarebas, female, you should not be leading us to war.” He charged.

She brought up her staff, sending him flying with a spell that smacked him dead center.

Before he could rise, she strode over to him and planted a small foot on his broad chest, bringing the tip of her staff up to brandish in his face like a blade. “I may be small and female and…whatever it is you called me, but _I_ am in charge here. Are we clear?”


	81. Legacy (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver Hawke / Gen

For the first time, it hadn’t been all about Garrett. The Carta had targeted both of them. Corypheus had wanted their father’s blood, either of them, to free him from his prison. Carver had fought at his brother’s side, belonging there more, in a way, than he had, for the first time in his life. Corypheus was a darkspawn. He was a Grey Warden. It’s what he did now.

His father’s voice, reaching out from the past, spoke to both of them, both his children, of a duty required, extracted from him by threat to Mother, because of magic, and the legacy he’d passed on to Garrett and Bethany.

As he savored his father’s words, a blinding thought struck him, and he smiled.

 _He_ was the child his father had wanted.


	82. One secret Varric always kept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric, f!Hawke, Carver Hawke, Bethany Hawke / Gen

Everyone knew the story of the Champion. Her father, dead before the Blight, her mother a scion of a former noble house, her sister had died during the escape from Lothering, how her brother had become a templar and rose up to stand beside her against the Knight-Commander’s evil.

Everyone knew the story as Varric had told it. He never mentioned that Bethany hadn’t died in Ferelden, that she like so many other mages in Kirkwall succumbed to blood magic and the demons, that her own sister had had to put her down, and that her twin had joined the Order vowing never again.

Nothing tarnishes the image of a hero like the truth, and he had a legend to grow. Better to let the dead rest.


	83. "Ooh! Chocolate!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver Hawke, Varric, Isabela, Merrill / Romance

“Are you sure about this, Varric?” Carver asked nervously.

“Trust me, Junior,” Varric said, clapping him on the back, “women love this stuff.”

He wasn’t sure if he believed the dwarf—it wasn’t as if Carver had ever seen him with a woman in _that way_ , and Bianca didn’t count—but it wasn’t as if he could talk to Garrett about it.

He found her playing cards with Isabela and nearly turned on his heel to run, but Varric was right behind him and shoved the small of his back towards the table. “Go get her, kid.”

“Hi, Merrill,” he said, blushing what he was sure were ten shades of pink.

“Oh, hello, Carver. Nice to see _you_ here, for a change.”

“Yes, here, instead of the Blooming Rose,” Isabela drawled, sizing him up with amusement.

The pink changed over to red. In a rush, he shoved the small box in his hands towards Merrill. “Here.”

Merrill brightened. “A present? For me?” She opened the lid and her smile faded to confusion. “Are these…” she trailed off, discomfort stealing over her face.

“Ooooo! Chocolate!” Isabela crowed, swooping in to pick up one of the candies. Rolling it across her lips, she eyed Carver with a smile. “You _are_ sharing, aren’t you?”

As Carver rushed past, he muttered, “I hate you, dwarf.”


	84. Black is the color

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair, implied Alistair/f!Mahariel / Angst

_Black is the color of my true love's hair…_

It was the first thing Alistair had noticed about her, before the Dalish leathers, before the delicately pointed ears. Even in the bright summer sunlight, her hair was black, seeming to drink in the light, a rich, dark color in contrast to the dun yellows, earthen browns, and even the occasional russet of the other soldiers.

 _I love my love and well she knows…_

She laughed as he trailed his fingers down the bare skin of her chest, and he smiled. It was good to hear her laugh, she never had before, hadn’t even seen her smile until after he’d given her the rose, and only then secretly, when she didn’t know he was watching.

He leaned in to kiss her and she curled against him, desire sweeping them away.

 _I'll go to the Clyde and I'll mourn and weep…_

It had taken him a long time to find the place. He’d only had a story from her, a broken fragment describing a place with a Dalish name unknown to the humans, and he’d had to find a Dalish elf willing to speak to him.

He’d never thought to return to the Brecilian Forest.

The trees here were burned husks, destroyed by the darkspawn as they’d swept through Ferelden, but the scout had led him here and the rocky outcropping looked like the one she’d described.

They’d had to burn the body. He’d regretted that necessity, but, carefully, he dug a hole in the ground and poured the ashes from her pyre into it, covering it up once more with proper reverence. From his pocket he pulled a seed and thrust it into the soil and patted it smooth, watering it with the tears dripping unchecked down his cheeks.

The King of Ferelden rose to his feet and turned away, leaving his heart behind in the woods.


	85. Fenris, Sebastian, Donnic - Band of Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aveline, Donnic, Fenris, Sebastian / Gen

“There you are,” Aveline said, striding into The Hanged Man.

Fenris and Sebastian turned their heads to look at Donnic, who glanced up from his cards. “Here I am.” He put three cards down and called, “Grace,” eliciting scowls from his tablemates who tossed in their cards.

“I knew you’d been playing cards with Fenris,” she said, eyeing the three. “But…Sebastian? Really?”

“What,” Sebastian said with a note of affront. “Joining the Chantry doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to play cards. Or that I cannot.”

“But…” she began, then trailed off.

Donnic turned in his seat and took her hand in one of his callused ones. “Love, it’s not that I don’t enjoy spending time with you.”

“It’s just that these are my cards,” Fenris interjected, “and I’d like to keep them intact.”

“Oh, alright,” Aveline said, the hand she put on Donnic’s shoulder the closest thing to a display of affection she could bring herself to here.

Sebastian spoke up helpfully. “I hear Hawke and Isabela are up in Hightown shopping for—what did Isabela call them? ‘Fripperies’. Perhaps you could join them.”

Aveline clamped her hand around the pommel of her sword as she walked out, refusing to let herself consider the consequences of one less Prince of Starkhaven.


	86. Pen and paper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders, Justice, implied Anders/f!Hawke / Gen

Anders used to enjoy the act of writing. There was a tactile pleasure in it: the feel of the parchment under his fingertips, the smell of the ink blooming when it was mixed with the water for the first time, the sound of the quill scratching as he wrote, the aesthetics of the text as it flowed across the page in sharp lines and swirling curves.

That was before Justice, before the _need_ to put words down on paper drove him harder and harder, until his fingers ached from clutching the pen and his eyes burned from hours at the desk, everything—healing, patients, friends, Hawke—were forgotten for the words and words and words, words to enflame, words to cajole, words to harangue and persuade and incite.

One day he woke up, lifted his head from his desk, and found the paper gone. The ink gone. The quills gone.

On that day, he was at a loss.

 _She does not understand._

“She loves me.”

 _You must write._

“There’s nothing _to_ write with.”

 _You must._

Words and words and words, and he had none he could say to the voice inside his head, who was once his friend.

He got up, his joints creaking, his limbs shaking, and went on a search for pen and paper.


	87. The color red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke, implied m!Hawke/Fenris / Angst

Red was the color of the sun, stained by smoke, when Bethany had died. Her blood had been crimson against the white of her blouse, and on Mother’s skin as she’d clutched the broken shell of her baby girl to her chest.

Red was the color of the sword on the banners outside the Gallows when they’d arrived in Kirkwall, on the breastplates of the templars that patrolled through town. It stood out, making it easier for an apostate to avoid them.

Red was the color of the robes Carver donned, in spite, for being left behind from the Deep Roads.

Red were Garrett’s hands, when he held his mother in his arms as she lay dying.

Red was the wine that he drowned his sorrow in.

Red was the sash that brought back hope.


	88. Whatever else I may or may not be to you, I am your friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair/f!Tabris / Angst

“Kallian,” Alistair called out as she rushed from the throne room. Her leathers made her faster, more agile, and he had finery to contend with. With a huff, he removed the crown from his head and thrust it into the hands of a startled servant, then unfastened the heavy mantle, letting it flump to the floor. There. That was better.

He caught up to her heading towards a side door, one he hadn’t even known existed, putting a hand to her shoulder. “Hey, stop.”

She whirled, and he saw that she was crying. “Leave me alone, Alistair,” she said in a low voice.

“This is hard for me, too, you know,” he reminded her gently. “You know I never wanted to be King, Maker _knows_ I never wanted to marry Anora—that was your idea.” She hissed in anger, but he went on. “I still love you, but whatever I may or may not be to you, I’m also still your friend.”

“If you’re my friend?” she asked, yanking herself out of his grip. “Talk to me again in six months.”


	89. Everything that you're willing to give me and then everything more that I can take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela/m!Hawke / Gen

Isabela wasn’t sure when this had all happened. Sure, Hawke was handsome, in an unconventional way—his eyes were asymmetrical and his jaw a little broader than she preferred—and she couldn’t deny he was a good lay. Or that he didn’t have a sense of adventure. She could be pretty creative as to where and how to have sex, but he still managed to surprise her. Then there was the whole coming back thing after the Book of Koslun kerfluffle—she _did_ return, even though she hadn’t meant to, because, really, there was a shortage of perfect asses in the world, it would be a shame to lose one.

But really, thinking back on it, shouldn’t she have realized she was spending almost every night in his bed? Or that he had a drawer for all the odds and ends she left behind—especially when it was nearly full? Or that for a while there’d been two tooth cleaners at the basin instead of only one? Or that the corset she’d picked out, the one she’d harassed him into paying for just to make him do it, was now the one she wore all the time, because he said he liked how it looked on her?

“Shit, Isabela,” she muttered to herself. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”


	90. Stop teasing that poor boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela, Varric, Carver Hawke / Romance

Carver fled the Hanged Man, his cheeks red. Isabela chuckled and dropped her booted foot back to the floor (really, the bench was much less…questionable, and therefore better for her boots anyway), picking up her tankard of something called ‘ale’.

“Isabela,” Varric said with mild reproof, “you should really stop teasing him. I know, it’s hard to resist, but now he’s going to go spend coin up at the Blooming Rose, and Hawke’s going to complain to me about how poor he is and how he’s never going to get the money together for the expedition.”

“Sorry, Varric,” she said, not sounding the least bit contrite. She smiled over the rim of her mug. “But it’s only teasing if you won’t follow through.”


	91. I don't think this is the kind of thing Andraste concerns herself with

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian, f!Hawke, Fenris, implied threesome / NSFW?

“Sweet Andraste,” Sebastian sighed in reverential tones, well-being washing through him.

Hawke chuckled low in her throat before she kissed the corner of his mouth, her hands idly stroking Fenris’s back. “Love? I don’t think this is the kind of thing Andraste concerns herself with.”


	92. All i wanted from you / Was a night maybe two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Hawke, Aveline / Romance?

Garrett shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Aveline,” he said, looking out the window of her office, “it’s not that I’m not happy for you, I am.”

“I sense a rebuke coming,” she said levelly.

“A regret,” he corrected. He darted a sidelong glance at her, unable to maintain eye contact and say what he wanted to say. “Did you ever…you know…think of me?”

“Oh, Hawke,” she said with a sigh, joining him to look out the window, wisely refraining from touching him. “You’re a fine man, and you’re going to make someone very happy someday. But you’re far too _extraordinary_ for me. Witches of the Wild, Dalish Keepers, Viscounts, and qunari Arishoks…I am proud to be your friend, but I could never be more than that. Besides,” she said, with a hint of the smile, “I don’t like fighting over who wears the pants in the family.”


	93. Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver Hawke / Gen

Marian didn’t get it.

Sure, they’d both lost a sister, but Carver had lost his twin. _Bethany_. There wasn’t a day that went by in Kirkwall that he didn’t miss her. He’d fled Ostagar and returned to Lothering to help his family escape, but he never doubted that Marian wouldn’t take care of herself and Mother. It had been Bethany he’d been concerned about, content to live in Marian’s shadow…until she didn’t, and the ogre had her.

Mother blamed Marian.

He blamed himself.

She wouldn’t understand, he thought, on the boat that took him to the Gallows. When she got back from the Deep Roads, she’d think he’d done this to spite her, as some sort of petty revenge in their never ending clash of wills.

It wasn’t that. Maybe if Bethany had been in a Circle, she would have been safe. Maybe she wouldn’t have died. Maybe he could save the next one, and then another after that. Maybe he could protect them when they couldn’t protect themselves.

He recognized the Knight-Captain in the courtyard, talking to Ser Thrask—another one trying to protect the mages. Walking up to them, they paused their conversation to turn to him, interest in their expression.

He cleared his throat and took the fateful step. “I’d like to join the templars.”


	94. Gardening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Tabris/Nathaniel / Gen

It had started in the Alienage. Amid the squalor and bleakness, learning to steal and to sneak, Adaia had had her daughter gather fist-sized rocks to demark a square outside their door, a tiny patch of ground that they’d broken with stones and nails until it crumbled into fine earth. Into the spot, barely larger than an arm’s length, they’d planted seeds scavenged from rotting midden heaps outside the nobles’ houses and watered them sparingly with the precious rainwater collected for their use. After dinner, Kallian would go outside and in the dying rays of the setting sun, would crouch in front of that patch, her arms hugged around her bony knees, and simply _look_ at the tiny green leaves stretching up from the ground, growing strong and clean in that place of so much desolation.

“What are you doing?” Nathaniel asked, disbelief in his voice.

Kallian rose, her knees creaking protest from being bent for so long. “What’s it look like?”

His gaze traveled over the plot of tilled earth, the elf-sized footprints compressing it down in neat rows, then glanced back at her askance. “You know there are people paid to do this.”

“Elves,” she retorted tartly. “Just like me.”

“They’re not the Warden-Commander of Ferelden.”

“Have you ever really _thought_ about what this is, arl’s son?” she asked, hands on her hips as she approached him. She had to tip her head back to meet his eyes, but she did so. “The work involved in turning the soil, planting the seeds, the daily care needed to make sure they get enough water, pull the weeds, patience to let them grow, until they…make food or flowers or whatever? Especially in a ravaged place?” She put her hands on his chest, feeling it rise and fall as he breathed. “It’s so easy to do nothing, to let someone else take care of things. It’s so easy to kill. It’s so much harder to make life.” She pushed against him, gently, pushing him away. “You have an eleven Warden-Commander. Deal with it.”

He caught at her wrists as he made to withdraw them, hesitating as he looked around the garden, seeing this time. He released his grip and said slowly, “You’re right. What can I do to help?”


	95. The witching hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair, Morrigan / Gen

Alistair never understood why it was called ‘the witching hour’, that time between when the bells tolled Nocturns and Lauds. As a boy in the barracks, the older recruits would tell whispered stories of the Witches of the Wilds, apostate mages who lured templars to their deaths, used and discarded them, feasting the flesh off their bones so that only rusting husks of armor were found along the rare paths through the dense scrub. They said that dark time is when their magic was strongest.

But, really, what templar would enter the Wilds at night, knowing that? If you were to go into the Wilds, it would be done during the day, when it was light out and you could see where you were going. For all the things about the templars Alistair disagreed with, he didn’t think they were stupid about that.

But in the deeps of darkest night, the rest of the castle getting what sleep they could, as Morrigan padded across the room towards him, all lithe body and cat-like eyes, and despite all his misgivings, he felt his manhood stir, he wondered if maybe there had been some truth to those midnight mutterings after all.


	96. The day comes when you can't hide from the things you've done anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m!Cousland, Alistair, First Warden / Gen

The seneschal said, “The First Warden is here to see you.”

King Aedan Cousland had been waiting to hear those words for many years now. Maybe not those precise words, but words like it. Ever since the coronation, and a certain conversation he’d had with Alistair.

“Fetch the Warden-Commander,” he asked, glad his old friend was in Denerim. “And show the First Warden in to my study. I’ll be there shortly.”

The chimes were ringing the hour when Aedan walked in to find Alistair and a man he didn’t recognize standing before the desk, coolly observing his entrance. He waited for the man to make obeisance and was only mildly affronted when he did not. The man had the air of someone used to taking, not giving, salutes, and Aedan knew well the rumors that this man was the true ruler of the Anderfels.

“Since you ignore my summons,” the man said without preamble, “it seems I must get your report in person.” He pointed to a chair peremptorily. “It’s time you explained how you still live.”


	97. The resemblance is startling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, f!Hawke, Anders / Gen

“Daylen?”

The question from the blond man drew Marian up short, but it wasn’t she the mage was looking at, but Carver just behind her right shoulder. Marian’s gaze swiveled back to look at him, and Carver gave her a helpless shrug in return.

“No,” Anders went on in a mutter without input from either Hawke. “Armor, big sword, couldn’t be Daylen.” He gave a relieved sigh.

Weeks later playing Wicked Grace with Carver and Varric in the Hanged Man, Ander said, “The resemblance really is uncanny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** For anyone who doesn't recognize 'Daylen', it's the default name for m!Amell. I'm sure it's rarely seen/used by most of the fandom. :)


	98. While you were sleeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corypheus / Gen

Dumat gone. Zazikel, Toth, Andoral, and Urthemiel—gone. Killed by these men, these same ‘Grey Wardens’ that had imprisoned him, lo, these many centuries ago.

As Corypheus rummaged through the fleeting memories of this insect, Larius, he realized he had much to re-learn. Not the least of which was to find Razicale and Lusacan and decide what to do about them for the lies they told him…


	99. There's one for the history books

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric, f!Hawke/Anders / Gen'ish

Varric blinked, then his eyebrows made a slow ascent towards his hairline. He’d opened the door into the Viscount’s private council rooms behind the throne hoping to find Hawke…and he had, he guessed. But not in flagrante delecto with Blondie, clothing that wasn’t discarded open and askew.

He cleared his throat noisily, and the two of them startled, tearing themselves apart and trying to cover themselves in their embarrassment. Breaking into the awkward moment, Varric said, “You know, not that it wouldn't make an _excellent_ way to spice up those dry as dust recounts of major events those historians like to write, but I’m not sure if I’m asked that I would say ‘Yep, there was the Champion, getting it on with her apostate boyfriend in one of the strictest cities in all of Thedas, with all the assembled noblemen of Kirkwall milling about in the outer chambers awaiting guidance from the new Champion.’ I don’t think they’d believe me.”


	100. Food, glorious food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair/f!Cousland / Gen'ish

If there was one thing Alistair could get used to as King, it was the banquets. After long months living lean as they criss-crossed a war-torn Ferelden through all seasons, being corrupted by the Blight, enduring a civil war, having all the food in the world (or so it seemed) at his beck and call was…a luxury. To be able to wake up in the middle of the night feeling a little peckish, to have only to ring a little bell and ask for anything, anything at all, and have it brought to him forthwith…well, he could get used to that.

He was munching on some rare Antivan cheese with crackers when Elissa poked him in the stomach. “You’re going to get soft, eating like that. Plus you’re getting crumbs in the bed.”

“But, _love_ , it’s _manchego_!”

She sighed and snuggled her back against his legs. “It’s a good thing I like you.”


	101. Infection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver / Gen/Angst?

It’s not that the Joining rid you of the darkspawn taint, Carver discovered. Not really. Nor did it really protect. It’s just that it tainted you in a different way, a magical way, a way that slowed down how long it took to kill you that smacked of blood magic and had made his skin crawl thinking about it, thinking about Father teaching Bethany and Garrett about why blood magic was wrong, and yet, here he was, alive, because Garrett had given him over to the Grey Wardens rather than see him die.

Carver wondered if Garrett knew they would use blood magic to save him. If Anders had told him.

And now his skin crawled again as the taint choked his veins with its corruption and filled his head with the song, the sweet, seductive song that promised him surcease, that reminded him of Bethany, ever young, ever alive in his memory, humming as she helped with the laundry, of Father’s laugh, Mother’s lullabies, and even Garrett’s taunting voice.

There was only one cure for this disease, Carver had learned, and in the dark of the night, he passed through the gates of Vigil’s Keep with a silent nod to the watchman.

It was time to go home.


	102. He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm Hawke / Gen

There were two things Malcolm Hawke was born with that he could never get rid of: magic and his sense of humor.

The latter bore him up even as he was imprisoned for the former, through lessons and life and so many Tranquil. He met a girl and fell in love, and she was a noble, engaged, for Andraste’s sake, and if you couldn’t laugh at that, what could you laugh at?

He escaped the Tower. They eloped. She got pregnant. They were going to have a child. The absurdity of it all made him smile every day.

A man came. They knew he was a mage. They needed him to help them. They threatened his wife, his unborn child. They made him break the vow he made to himself to never do blood magic. For Leandra. For the baby.

They fled to Ferelden. He became a farmer. A mage farmer. His daughters were mages. Of course they were. He hid them and taught them and never told them the truth. He tried to give them as normal a life as they could have, as the children of an apostate and a love-struck noblewoman, hiding from the people who would try to tear them apart.

He died at the hands of a force out of myth before he realized exactly how mad the world really was to become


	103. Happily ever after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric, Merrill / Angst

“Is that the end of your story?” Merrill asked.

“Almost, Daisy.” Clearing his throat, Varric intoned, “With the Knight-Commander dead, the Knight-Captain threw down his sword and knelt in fealty to the Champion of Kirkwall, ending the reign of terror. She married her Prince and ushered in a new chapter of peace and prosperity in Kirkwall. And they all lived happily ever after. Well, except one.”

“That’s a nice story. I feel like I’ve heard that one before.”

“Oh, I’ve probably told you that one several times,” Varric said. “But you always seem to like it.”

“It was nice to see you, Varric.”

The dwarf rose from his seat and leaned in to kiss Merrill’s forehead above the blazing Andrastian sun. “It was nice to see you, too, Daisy. I’ll see you again next week.”


	104. Malcolm and Leandra’s First Satinalia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leandra Hawke/Malcolm Hawke / G / Gen'ish
> 
> From a 2011 Days of Ficmas prompt: "Malcolm and Leandra, before Hawke is born"

There were times, not often, but times like that moment, when Leandra wondered what she was doing with her life. She might still have been pregnant, with parts of her aching that she didn’t know existed, swollen ankles, and an inability to see her feet, unable to sleep, to eat, or…well, anything really, but she would have had a bevy of servants to take care of her, her husband, and her house. It would be warm, or at least warm _er_ than this drafty shack, with fine furniture, food, and company, not this backwater country that smelled of wet dog and mud.

But then she wouldn’t have Malcolm, her darling, dashing rogue of a mage, sweeping in through the door, bringing with him a blast of bitter chill that made her fear the onset of Wintermarch in Amaranthine given that it was the end of Harvestmere. Brightly, he announced, “Guess what I have!” so that she couldn’t be cross with him.

She saw what he had, a large wicker basket covered with a threadbare, stained cloth, from which…Maker, did she smell _cinnamon_? Struggling to her feet, she waddled over to clutch at Malcolm’s arm and flip back a corner of the cover. The basket was full to the rim with food odds and ends, some of them still feebly warm. “Malcolm, you didn’t…”

Hurt crossed his features, evoking the haunted expression that had lingered since his unexplained disappearance from Kirkwall before they fled. “I’m not so desperate that I need to,” he said with quiet dignity, causing her to lay her free hand over his on the handle of the basket. “No,” he said, some of his natural ebullience re-asserting itself. “I’ve been making some remedies for the cook at Vigil’s Keep, nothing dangerous,” he added hastily, seeing the alarm that rose up to clutch at her throat. “Nothing magical. Just a little something to ease her aches as the cold sets in. There’s an overabundance of food, thanks to the Arl’s feasts for his firstborn, and she knew about you here at home, so big with child,” he said as he splayed fingers across her enormous middle, “and pressed this upon me. Look,” he said, voice softening, withdrawing his hand from touching her to pull out a handpie. “It’s apple, your favorite.”

Tears prickled her eyes, and she blinked them back self-consciously. “Oh Malcolm,” she said quietly, tiredness threatening to turn her weepy, “this is wonderful. You’ll thank her for me, will you?”

“Of course, love. And give a toast for baby Nathaniel, the founder of the feast.”

A sharp pain rippled through her midsection, and she swayed on her feet, automatically moving to cradle her belly. “Later, I think,” she said with a shaky laugh, and when he hmmed, giving her a puzzled look, she added, “ _after_ our own is born.”

“Why—” he began, then broke off. “Oh. OH!”


	105. Long Way from Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen/Macha / G / Gen'ish
> 
> From a 2011 Ficmas prompt: "something adorable with Cullen/Macha"

Cullen had never felt the lack while in Ferelden. Immured in the Tower, Kinloch Hold barely more than a village, Satinalia was celebrated in relative isolation, companions exchanging gifts with a few closer friends, a feast for templars and mages, segregated of course.

Here, his first winter in Kirkwall, the deprivation stung. Most recruits came from the city, their families ferrying to and from the Gallows with gifts or invitations to gatherings. The full members of the Order, the same, a few even having wives or children of their own.

He was alone.

He told himself he liked it that way—no special meal was prepared for the templars, Meredith didn’t believe in “coddling” the mages—he could use the time in contemplation, praying to Andraste and the Maker for the peace he struggled with every day in the wake of his time at the Broken Circle.

“Ser Cullen?”

A woman’s voice, familiar, interrupted his musings, nearly making him trip over his feet.

“Oh! I’m sorry, Ser Cullen, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” Cullen said, turning to identify the face that went with the voice—Macha, Keran’s sister. He remembered her from that incident with Hawke, just a few weeks prior. She’d been a regular visitor since then and today, she had a basket under one arm. “Good afternoon to you. Is there something you need?”

Hesitation—he found the uncertainty charming, given how forceful she’d been when Keran’s career hung in the balance, and waited with bemused patience. Rose suddenly blushed her cheeks, before she nudged the basket to her hands and thrust it to him. “This is for you. A thank you, for what you did for Keran, but also…he said you were from Ferelden and had no family here. It’s not right, not to have family on Satinalia. You should have something.”

“The Chantry is my family.” Cullen said the words, but they lacked his usual conviction. A pile of knitting topped the basket, and under it…he thought he smelled fruitcake. Pulling the wool out to check, it spilled apart, rolling down to a scarf of palest blue. He looked at it in incredulous disbelief. “Did…you make this? For me?”

“I’ve heard it gets cold in Ferelden, but the cold here is different, coming off the sea. I wasn’t sure if you’d be prepared for it. The color…I thought it would suit you.”

She was avoiding looking at him, and he smiled. He remembered a time being that unaccountably shy around someone and it warmed him…more than he’d thought it would, if he was honest with himself. He put that warmth into his reply. “Thank you, Macha.” With one hand, he wrapped the scarf around his neck. “No one has ever gotten me a nicer gift. And thank you for the cake as well.”

She straightened up and smiled back at him, and he was struck for the first time by how pretty she was. “Happy Satinalia to you, Knight-Captain.”

“And to you.” Then he surprised himself by adding, “I hope to see you again soon.”


	106. It’s Not Much, But It’s Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/f!Hawke / PG / Gen'ish
> 
> From a 2011 Ficmas prompt: "a sequel (albeit short) of ["What Came After"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/241275). Fenris, Hawke and baby Carver spend their first Satinalia together."

Rivain. It had been almost ten years since he’d been this far north on the Thedan continent, the first time he’d been this far east, and it was _hot_. It seemed ironic that after complaining, internally at least, for the better part of the last year of being too cold, first struggling through the Vinmarks in the Free Marches then a chilly spring and summer in Ferelden, that he would find himself walking down the street, shirt slung over his shoulder, sweltering in Llomerryn on the eve of Umbralis. _Firstfall_ , he corrected himself mentally. Even being out of Tevinter that long, he still marked time by the months of his native tongue, a habit he was trying to break. Those associated with the Felicisima Armada needed no reason to take any further special note of him, especially given his history with the organization from his time in Kirkwall.

Not that they were taking any note of anyone this evening. The last rays of sunlight stained the undersides of the clouds crimson and torches lit the town. Music skirled through the buildings, pipes and drums, fiddles and bells, as they celebrated the holiday. People began crowding the streets laughing and making merry, deep in their cups.

“Happy Satinalia!” an overripe woman called as she passed him, her hands grazing across his chest in a manner he felt far too familiar, and it was all he could do to suppress the urge to lash out at her. She was the first, but not nearly the last, as more bodies crowded the thoroughfare, impeding his progress, as they headed towards the docks and he moved away.

By the time he reached the tiny hut, he was sweating from more than the lingering heat of the day, and he all but slammed the door behind him, leaning against it heavily.

“Fenris?”

Hawke was looking at him quizzically, a dagger half drawn from its sheath at her waist. Baby Carver, oblivious to Fenris’s discomfort, kicked at the air with a strength as if he meant to vanquish it.

He made a dismissive, cutting motion with his hand. “It’s nothing.” Abruptly changing his mind, he crossed the floor to her and clasped his hands behind her neck, fingers tangling in the hair curling from the nape, and pressed his forehead against hers. He jumped when her hands came to light on his shoulders, shuddered when they slid down so her thumbs touched over his collarbone, but then just as suddenly relaxed. This was _Hawke_. This was his home.

“I made dinner,” she murmured. “It’s not much, but I tried to do something special, you know, for the holiday. And a little wine for later.” A smile quirked up the corners of her mouth. “It’s not aggregio, it’s all we could afford. I hope you won’t disown me.”

Her words, her presence, were balm to his frayed nerves. Closing his eyes briefly, he leaned in to brush a kiss across her warm, soft mouth, then smiled himself. “I’ll think about it.”


	107. Antiva’s Nice This Time of Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric/Sigrun / PG (for language)
> 
> From the 2011 Ficmas prompt: " _Varric/Sigrun? :D They are one of my favorite pairings. I'm also a sucker for Calling fic and soul-destroying angst._ "
> 
> I don't think it's quite that soul-destroying.

Varric sat down heavily, feeling every creaky ache in his joints as he did so, and reflected on his life. It had been a pretty good one. The anonymous head of a successful merchant family, he had achieved what his brother, Bartrand, had only dreamt about: autonomy from the powerful dwarven Merchant’s Guild. He wanted for nothing, from good food, good ale, to good company. Sure, he was no longer in the thick of the action and creating the tales that made him so famous in earlier years, but they’d achieved what every bard sought after: codification. Go into any tavern in any town, and the stories told of the Champion of Kirkwall and her steadfast Companions were his images, his words, with no further embroidery or adornment.

Rubbing his hand through his beard, he made his decision. “I really _am_ getting too old for this shit.” Sigrun smirked at him, creases furrowing the lines of her tattoos. “And I have several reasons as to why the Deep Roads were not on my top five list of retirement spots. Antiva was four of those, by the way.” Sighing heavily, he pushed back to his feet through the complaints of his knees. “When do we leave?”


	108. Two Sides of the Same Coin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Bethany, m!Amell, Carver / PG, a bit of angst, a bit of humor)
> 
> From the 2011 Ficmas prompt: "Warden!Carver or Warden!Bethany meet his/her famous cousin, the Hero of Ferelden."

Bethany awoke and had no idea where she was. The last she remembered with any clarity was the Deep Roads: heat and darkness and the sense of the press of earth threatening to fall on them all. The ceiling over her head was stone, but man-made, the bed beneath her too soft to be anything but a mattress, and sunlight streamed from a window somewhere to her right.

“You’re awake. Good,” a feminine voice said from her left. “The Commander will want to talk to you. Don’t get up yet.”

“The Commander?” Bethany echoed without comprehension, struggling to a seated position. But the curly haired woman—a mage, from the look of her blue and silver robe—went to speak to a servant in similar livery, who hurried out. The woman busied herself getting soup for Bethany. “Where am I?”

“Vigil’s Keep in Amaranthine.”

“Ferelden!”

The woman nodded. “The Commander will explain.”

The Commander made his entrance as Bethany was finishing up her broth and bread. Her eyes widened when a man, not much older than her, also dressed in a blue and silver robe, approached her bed with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, I think. What happened?”

“You were delirious by the time Stroud got you here. But you survived the Joining, so you should be back on your feet soon.”

“She said you’d explain everything,” Bethany said with a touch of asperity. “I’m waiting for that. What are you Commander of? You don’t look like templars.”

A smile split the man’s dark beard, making him attractive. “Hardly. Commander Daylen Amell of the Ferelden Grey Wardens.”

“Grey Wardens!” The blood drained from her cheeks. “Wait, Amell?”

Smiling sheepishly, Daylen rubbed the back of his neck with a hand. “The Hero of Ferelden, yes. But let’s get past that.”

“No, no,” she waved off his misconception. “My mother was an Amell.”

“Really?” Daylen said with clear interest, scooting his stool closer, before shaking his head. “No. Later. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss it.”

“Why?”

“I’m making a botch of this,” Daylen grimaced ruefully. “You came in with Blight Sickness. There is only one known cure for that, which is to become a Grey Warden. Your brother and Anders—” Something unreadable flickered across his face, something that suggested strong feelings being suppressed, “—convinced one of my senior Wardens that you had something to contribute to the order.”

“You take mages?” she asked faintly, mind reeling at his revelations. “Of course you do, you’re a mage.” She slumped into the pillows behind her.

“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” he said kindly. “But it’s not all bad. Do you have any questions?”

“I…” She trailed off, mind blank. “I need to think about it.”

“I’ll stop by later.” He rose. “I want to find out more about your mother, if nothing else,” he finished with a grin.

She watched Daylen depart, feeling the walls of the Keep closing in around to crush her.

#####

 _In another universe..._

The Commander made his entrance as Carver was finishing up his bread and broth, dressed in a blue and silver robe similar to the healer. “Maker’s Breath,” Carver groaned with a scowl. “Another damn mage?”


	109. For the Hell of It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (f!Hawke/Isabela, PG, humor)
> 
> For the 2011 Ficmas prompt: " _Why Hawke is indefinitely persona non grata at Hightown parties_ "

“This?” Isabela asked. Marian turned to find her holding up a cut crystal bowl about the size of two hands cupped together that she’d just laid aside.

Marian went back to rummaging through her trunk. “The water dish of Baron Adeline’s mabari. If it’s good enough for Adeline’s, it’s good enough for my mabari, isn’t that right boy.” She paused in her search to make kissy faces at her hound, who snorted in disgust and re-positioned himself on the fur rug to look away from her.

Laughing musically, there was a few seconds until Isabela broke in again. “And this?”

“A bottle of brandy I swiped off Bran’s desk. I meant to give it to you. Happy nameday.”

“Thanks,” Isabela said wryly. There was the sound of the cork popping off and Isabela drinking, finishing with a sigh. “What _are_ you looking for, anyway?”

“Ha!” Marian exclaimed, dragging the riotous collage of fabric from the bottom of the heap, and announced, “Baron Solange’s pants.”

Giggling now, Isabela asked, “I can’t believe you stole his _pants_. What do you even want them for? Please tell me you’re going to wear them. Pleeeeeeease.”

“Nothing so fabulous, I’m afraid,” Marian said, standing and smooching Isabela on the cheek. “Bodhan needs more cleaning cloths, and it amuses me to imagine them such.”


	110. Childhood hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (f!Trevelyan, Alistair; implied f!Cousland/Alistair, G, bittersweet humor)
> 
> Written for the Tuesday Prompt Fest on LiveJournal. Contains spoilers for "Dragon Age: Inquisition"

Evelyn Trevelyan shifted her feet. Hawke was already halfway out of the cave, radiating anger and a need to go, to start the journey to track down Alistair's lead, answering in terse monosyllables when he managed words at all to Varric's calming intentions. The Iron Bull and Dorian seemed more engrossed with eyeing each other warily, like two cats meeting in an alley, and Evelyn was equally uncertain how it would resolve.

Alistair Theirin went about methodically but efficiently packing his gear, ignoring Hawke's disapproval and the Qunari-Tevinter detente with equal indifference, until Evelyn made up her mind and stepped forward, feeling her cheeks grow hot despite her boldness. "I'm sorry, I just had one more thing to say," which she did quietly, under her breath.

"Yes?"

He had turned to her with a spark of interest that, momentarily, cut through the strain of his situation and gave her encouragement to continue. "I just wanted to say it's been an honor to meet you. I grew up in the Free Marches on stories about you and the Hero of Ferelden, of how you escaped Ostagar and brought together the forces to defeat the archdemon, and..." she realized where her thoughts were going, the natural conclusions to those romantic stories she would swap with the other girls about the long-lost bastard son of a King and the second daughter of a noble house finding love in such a time of terror, and broke off, aghast, when the reality of half that story stood looking at her with mocking blue eyes.

"Am I really that old?" he half muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his neck in a rueful gesture. "That you grew up hearing stories about me? Maker's breath." He shook his head a little, shook off the moment of introspection, and let a wry, weary half-smile turn up a corner of his mouth. "Thank you, but they weren't just 'stories' to us. Me," he corrected, or added, she wasn't sure which. "I'm just a Grey Warden, maybe one of the last sane ones in southern Thedas."

"You're more than that!" she blurted out in his defense.

The other corner of his mouth joined the first in the first genuine smile he had since she'd found him here. "And you're the Inquisitor. I'd bet you three wheels of cheese and one of Elissa's mabari pups that if you manage to deal with Corypheus, they'll be telling stories about you someday that will eclipse anything I ever did. Remember that, later."

He tied the last knot to close up his rucksack and slung it over his shoulder, passing through the tunnel to be swallowed up by the rain and the night and leaving Evelyn to ponder the nature of circumstance and fame.


	111. Wishing for Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (f!Inquisitor/Cullen, PG, romance fluff)
> 
> Mild Inquisition spoilers
> 
> Written for the Tuesday Prompt Fest on LiveJournal

Cullen walked out of the mess hall and reflexively checked the sky. The clouds he'd noticed gathering had turned ominous during his breakfast, and he began mentally calculating the effect the burgeoning snowstorm would have on his plans for the day, the men he wouldn't be able to deploy, the training that would have to be re-arranged...it would be a setback, and a damn inconvenient one, but a guilty corner of his heart glanced up again and hoped. He passed on orders to his lieutenants then headed up to catch up on the never ending pile of paperwork.  
The first flakes drifted down as he reached the top steps of the battlements and began falling in earnest before he reached the door of his office. When the wind began beating at the door, he wondered for the hundredth time why he'd thought having a base of operations deep within the Frostbacks had ever been a good idea.

The door opened up with a bang, hurled inwards by the wind, the storm coughing up the snow-crusted form of the Inquisitor, who struggled to close it. He leapt up from his chair to help push it closed, then turned to her with a scowl. "Are you mad?"

"Hello to you, too," she said with a wry murmur, shaking her head to send melting flakes to shower around her and brushing tiny drifts from her clothes onto the floor. "We couldn't leave today and someone said they'd seen you heading up here. I thought I'd come and check up on you."

He reached out to help remove the snow from her shoulders. "I'm fine, but you shouldn't have been out in this," he said, both irritated and elated that she had.

"A little snow isn't going to hurt me."

There were volumes in the way she said it, things left unspoken that he recognized immediately and left a shot of familiar fear for her behind. His hands closed on her shoulders through the heavy cloak, and she removed her mitten to reach up and cover his hand with her own in unspoken understanding. He cleared his throat, trying to get past the moment. "Since you are here, you're probably freezing. Can I get you a cup of tea?"

"Tea would be nice," she agreed. "But I was hoping rather to spend some time together, since nothing's going to get done today."

He shot a glance over his shoulder to his desk. "I have paperwork, to do..." he started reluctantly, then trailed off when she stepped forward to wrap her arms around his waist beneath his cloak. Her hands were cold, which he used as the excuse for the sudden rush of goosebumps where she touched.

"Which will keep," she said softly but firmly. "For a little while at least. If you think I'm mad for coming up here, how likely is it anyone else will?"

"Not likely," he admitted, turning to look down at her. He lifted a hand to trace the line of her jaw with the back of his fingers, wondering at it all, at her.

"Good." She stood on tip-toe to kiss the corner of his mouth then pulled away from him, heading towards the ladder.

His skin burned where her lips had pressed as it came up in a half-smile. If snow had to ruin his plans for the day, he thought as he admired the curve of her hips as she preceded him to the loft, at least there was some consolation to take from it.


	112. No room for doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (f!Trevelyan/Cullen, PG'ish, romance angst)
> 
> DA: Inquisition spoilers
> 
> Written for the Tuesday Prompt Fest on LiveJournal

Doubt was something Evelyn Trevelyan, as the scion of nobility, had learned to hide well, youngest child or not. Thrust into the role of Inquisitor, she’d developed a reputation for calm decisiveness, a trait that instilled trust in those who followed her and lent her words a gravitas that Josephine exploited to its fullest.

But here, in the dark of night, listening to Cullen’s nightmare-filled whimpers, the doubt gnawed at her. _Was I right? Should I have let him go back on the lyrium?_ She recalled the overheard whispers amongst the Inquisition’s templars-- _he’s daft. You stop taking lyrium, you go mad_ \--and as Cullen twitched, she wondered what she would do if he did—or if he already was.

With a jerk and a grunting cry, Cullen tored himself awake, a shudder rippling through him that she felt from shoulder to hip. She stilled, waiting to see how he would react—sometimes he pulled away violently, but this was one of the _other_ times, when the arm around her waist tightened just a little and he pressed his cheek against her shoulder, while his shivering calmed, rapid breaths slowed, the stubble a prickly comfort.

She covered his hand with her own, wrapping her fingers around to squeeze gently to soothe, to tell him, silently, that she was awake. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said without preamble, shame and remorse tangled up and heavy in his tone.

“You didn’t,” she said, voice husky this deep in the night.

They lay there, curled up together, exhausted, not sleeping, and there was nothing but doubt and doubt and more doubt between them.


	113. He always liked the sound of rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (m!Lavellan/Dorian Pavus, PG-13'ish, romance fluff)
> 
> Mild DA: Inquisition spoilers, slight deviation from canon
> 
> Written for the Tuesday Prompt Fest on LiveJournal

Mahanon had always liked the sound of rain. When he’d been small in the city, it had seemed to limn the dilapidated clapboard walls and ramshackle roofs of the Alienage in liquid gold when the storm broke and the sun came out, silver under the light of the moon, and, for a few, brief moments, washed the squalid alleys clean. With the Dalish, it had pattered on the roofs of the aravels, dripped from the bright green leaves of trees, glistened on the low bushes and blades of grass, the promise of life.

Here at the Storm Coast, it was a wet, wild thing that seemed almost alive, tearing at the edges of his robes as he ducked into the tent.

“ _Fasta vass_!” Dorian swore. “Close that up before water gets everywhere!”

Mahanon grinned, unrepentant, scraping sodden ropes of hair back from his face. “Too late.”

Dorian’s demeanor changed when he actually looked at Mahanon. “You’re soaked through.”

With a glance down at himself, Mahanon shrugged. “A little, yes.”

A playful glint twinkled in Dorian’s dark eyes. “There’s only one thing for it, then.”

Human hands plucked at his robes, succeeding where the wind had failed.

Later, as he listened in satiated contentment to the persistent, hard staccatos on the canvas stretched above them, soaked by something other than rain, he’d found another reason to appreciate the sound, if only for this stolen moment away from responsibility, from duties, from what needed to be done.

Dorian stirred beside him. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to go soon,” he said with muzzy resignation.

“Not yet.”

“Oh, good,” Dorian sighed in relief and sank even more heavily into the bedroll.

 _Not yet_ , Mahanon thought. _I want to enjoy this for a little while longer._


	114. Houses of the holy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (f!Cadash, Varric Tethras, G, friend fic)
> 
> DA: Inquisition spoilers
> 
> Written for the Tuesday Prompt Fest on LiveJournal

“There you are.”

Varric’s voice, hushed or not, cut through the sepulchral sound of the choir above singing the Chant of Light to the almost empty Grand Cathedral. At this time in the evening, it was the only sound, the Serault glass workers having quit for the day, and Malika found it…oddly soothing.

She tilted her head as Varric joined her, pensive. “It sounds different in here than at Skyhold.”

“More moneyed,” he agreed. “Less like regular folk.”

She flashed him a smile, there and gone. “That, too. But…” She trailed off, trying to put how it made her _feel_ into words. “I never knew the Ancestors. Don’t know Andraste, really, either.” She looked down to her left hand, gloved, and flexed her fingers, acutely aware of the Anchor under the leather. “But we went into the _Fade_ ,” she said with incredulous awe. “We saw that spirit. We saw the Black City.” She made a fist, then deliberately put it behind her back. “If they’re right about all that…what else are they right about?”

“Are you asking if I believe?” Varric drawled, eyes wandering the carved adornments, the painted frescoes, rather than looking at her.

“Maybe.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Herald—I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my day, none weirder since I joined on with you. I don’t know if you’re incredibly lucky or incredibly unfortunate, but…yeah. I don’t think you’d be where you are today without something powerful behind it, and I’d rather believe it was Her than something else.”

The painting of Andraste smiled benevolently down the length of the cathedral to where the two dwarves stood, and Malia smiled in return. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I agree.”

Varric’s punch smacked her shoulder. “C’mon, Your Holy Worshipfulness. I need a drink, and I think you do, too.”

“Only if you’re buying.”

“Don’t push your luck,” he said with amusement.


	115. Anders at Skyhold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (m!Hawke/Anders, G, genfic)
> 
> DA: Inquisition spoilers
> 
> Written for the Tuesday Prompt Fest on LiveJournal

Beside him, Anders slowed, then stopped, as they passed under the portcullis of Skyhold and caught the first glimpse of the inner bailey. Garrett stopped when he did, giving him a concerned look. This close, he could hear the snapping of the Inquisition banners in the changeable breezes that skirled over the walls even despite the everyday hum of a stronghold that appeared to be full of people. A boy lugged a heavy bucket of water towards an archway under stone stairs leading up to the keep. He was startled to see a knot of mages wearing the traditional robes of Circle enchanters having an animated discussion as they strolled by, a knot of men and women with the downthrust sword of the templar order on surcoats over armor watching them pass, and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anders’s gaze following them.

The expression on his face drove a shaft of worry through Garrett. “Are you okay, love?”

Anders didn’t respond immediately, lips drawn thin and tight. It was a look Garrett knew only too well since the years in Kirkwall, and he hoped beyond measure Anders’s control would hold. It did, and when Anders spoke, it was with sadness overlaying the anger. “Is this all it came to? Exchanging one yoke for another? Could they really be that _stupid_ to waste so quickly the freedom they won? Maker’s Breath, was it all for _nothing_?”

Garrett didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t know what to say. He ached for Anders, for what he wanted so badly, what they both wanted, but a larger, more immediate problem stood before him, one that threatened Anders more intimately than the outcome of the Inquisition. He touched Anders’s shoulder, shaking it slighty. “One thing at a time, love,” he murmured in quiet consolation. “Corypheus first.” He didn’t flinch when the cracks began to glow along Anders skin, simply squeezing for comfort until they winked out. “Then we’ll get back to the war.”

Absently, Anders reached up to cover Garrett’s hand with his own. “As long as we do.”


	116. I’m glad it’s you / It’s very… Orlesian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Cadash, Varric / G / genfic
> 
> (Same character as Chapter 114)

A knock sounded at Malika’s room. Panicked, she snarled out, “Who is it?”

There was a pause before a man’s muffled voice came through the heavy door. “Varric. Are you decent?”

“Oh, thank the Maker,” Malika muttered with relief, crossing the floor and almost falling onto her face, saved only by the fact that the door was _right there_ and she fell against it heavily instead, catching herself with a heavy *THUD*.

“Everything okay in there?” There was a mixture of concern and amusement in his tone that the wood couldn’t filter out.

She wrenched the door open, and Varric, looking very dashing, caught sight of her and got the peculiar look on his face of trying very hard not to laugh. “Don’t,” she said savagely, shuffling aside carefully to allow him to enter. “This is bad enough as it is.”

He coughed dramatically, perhaps acquiescing to her demand, but still, he smiled. “I’m surprised Ruffles and Nightingale left you to your own devices.” He sighed, and tugged loose the swath of bright blue fabric she had tied around her head. “That’s a sash, not a scarf.”

“Help?” she asked piteously.

He sighed again. “That’s me, Varric Tethras, merchant prince, world famous author…and lady’s maid. Come here, let’s get this sorted out. I don’t think Duke Gaspard will take kindly to being made to wait.”


	117. Carver is told of the events of Here Lies the Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver, m!Hawke, implied m!Hawke/Anders / G / genfic

“Of all the idiotic, lyrium addled, nug-headed…” Carver ran out of metaphors for ‘stupid’, so cut to the end. “What were you _thinking_?”

Cooper took the diatribe with his usual, unflappable aplomb, and when Carver finished, he stepped forward and engulfed his brother in a hug. Taken aback by this gesture, Carver remained rigidly glowering but didn’t pull away, which Cooper counted as a small victory. After a few moments, he loosened the embrace and put a little distance between them. “I was thinking,” he said, fighting the rising lump in his throat, “that it was my fault Corypheus escaped and I was going to be _damned_ if I was going to let him win and take my little brother.”

“And Anders,” Carver said petulantly.

But Cooper knew Carver well enough since their journey into Corypheus’s prison to notice him softening a little. “And Anders,” he echoed in agreement. “But just as much you.”

Carver harrumphed and unconsciously put more space between them to shift on his feet, non-plussed. “Well, now what?”


	118. The Old Gods and the New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> implied m!Adaar/Iron Bull / M (language) / genfic
> 
> NSFW for language

It started with Andraste, and, through her, the Maker. Then it was ancient, thought to be long dead Tevinter Magisters and their hang ups on the Old Gods. Then it was Mythal, with ancient elves that, by all rights, should have been dead, but obviously weren’t.

“Fuck them,” Kaaras said leaving Skyhold with the Iron Bull for the last time. “Fuck them all.” He turned to look at his partner’s scarred profile. “How far is it to Seheron?”


	119. That is ... inadvisable at best / Woohoo!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Cadash, Cassandra, Dorian, Varric / G / genfic

Cassandra looked down the incline. “Inquisitor, I do not believe this would be a good idea.”

“Seeker and I don’t agree on very many things,” Varric said uneasily, “but I agree with her in this case.”

“I am _not_ going down that way,” Dorian said in a huff.

Malika sniffed haughtily at them all. “It’s the shortest way down. I’m doing it.” With that, she started down the slope. “Woohoo!”

And as they’d expected, about halfway down, she began sliding down uncontrollably, bouncing through bushes, to the screeching sound of loose scree and tearing vegetation.

Exchanging glances, they found a safer path down. It was slower, but it didn’t leave them dirty and bruised as the Inquisitor was when they eventually rejoined her.


	120. Chaos is a ladder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Corypheus / G / genfic)
> 
> DAI spoilers

He had the mages, frightened by the threat of Inquisition and Templars, willing to sacrifice their freedom for the ‘protection’ of the Tevinter Empire. He had the Templars, those self-righteous fools the Chantry had so helpfully addicted, so easy to seduce with red lyrium into falling under his sway. Power…a marginalized noblewoman in war-torn Orlais, willing to sacrifice Empress and family in exchange for promises as empty to Corypheus as the air that breathed them.

War ravaged the lands. His agents worked across Thedas. There was only one piece left on his climb to godhood.

“Grey Wardens,” he growled with hatred, remembering his imprisonment, and he willed it, _twisted_ , and smiled with satisfaction at the terror he inspired.


	121. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great fortune must be in want of a wife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (f!Tabris/Alistair / PG-13 / Sexual fluff)

Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed as he walked down the hallway of Fort Drakon towards his chambers. This wasn’t the first time Eamon and Teagan had trotted out the finest of the Free Marches’s eligible brides before him, but it had certainly been the most desperate. That girl of the Trevelyan family had been—what, twelve years old? She should be chasing young boys around the fields or learning to knit or whatever it was young girls did, not sitting in a drafty banquet hall with painted face and glowing silks trying to catch the attention of a king who, if Alistair could admit, had no real desire to be caught.

He pushed open the door to his room, sighing with relief as he closed it. Leaning against it, he tilted his head back and let his eyes close, allowing himself to breathe freely for the first time all day.

“Here I go,” an amused female voice intruded on his moment of peace, “sneaking into your room and artfully arranging myself in your bed, and you don’t even have the courtesy to notice.”

His eyes popped open to take in Kallian, gloriously naked, arranged as promised invitingly on the rumpled sheets of his bed, a single, vivid rose likely stolen from the greenhouse tucked behind one delicately pointed ear, bright against the dark curtain of hair that spilled over her bare shoulder.

“I’ve noticed,” he said with a slow grin, feeling his body react in ways he never had, and perhaps never could, to all the prospects his uncles threw at him. “Maker help me, I’ve noticed. If I’ve caused you grievous insult, then it’s upon me to make it up to you.”

“I’ll entertain your attempts to apologize,” the Warden-Commander said with mischief in her smile.

He crawled up the bed and to her, kissing her deeply, passionately, fervently. As he bore her down to the pillows, he held the fleeting thought, _Why would I want a wife when I have_ her?


	122. You’ve got mail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King Cousland, implied past relationships with Leliana, Morrigan, marriage with Anora, gets a specific letter and reacts to it.
> 
> Spoilers for DA:I, implied spoilers for a particular War Table mission,
> 
> Mostly me working out bits of headcanon for one of my PCs. This is the same m!Cousland I wrote a character piece for, "[Upstairs, Downstairs, in my Lady's Chamber](http://archiveofourown.org/works/279024)", and the 'promise' referenced in the fic below is mentioned explicitly in that fic.

“There’s a message for you, sir.”

Geoffrey Cousland sized up the dwarf, searching for a hint of the trap he thought he saw in the words. Finding none—yet—he reached for the sealed letter offered in the dwarf’s outstretched hand, giving her a curt nod of thanks. No one, other than Anora, was supposed to know he was here, and she didn’t even know _exactly_ where he was. He’d kept that from her, for her own sake.

Besides, this wasn’t her seal.

The persistent calling of the song had made his mind slow. Another glance, confirmation, and he recognized it. Turning from the dwarf to return to his rented room in the merchant’s quarters, his hands shook, and he had to press them to his side to still them.

There were two letters enclosed, one nested within the other, two different hands. He read the first, the outer shell, the beautiful penmanship, the graceful swirls, and remembered Leliana, her fiery hair, her fiery spirit, the way her skin glowed gold in the candlelight. He’d loved her when he’d been with her, had sorrowed when she’d left him, and still thought of her fondly, even though he’d found unexpected happiness in a marriage of matched ambition.

The inner letter, the hidden one, sent a flash of pain, of bittersweet thrill. Sharp edges, almost illegible, but Morrigan’s words. Memories of her lacked the rosy tinge, vivid, hard, electric, primal, and above all, pain. A child. A son. _Kieran_. The name of the promise he would not, could not, keep. The name for his regret. He had stayed. Should he have gone? Dreams crossing dreams. He loved Anora. There was no child. He _had_ a child. He was there, with her. Geoffrey thought of his mother, her hand splattered with the blood of Howe’s men, with the blood of his father, touching his face. He saw Oren, half obscured by Oriana, trying to shield her son from the death that took them both.

The song soared. It held promises too. A surcease of pain. Of pleasure. Of peace. Find the source, and all would be well.

Geoffrey had faced an archdemon, heard the song close enough to touch, had touched, and he snarled defiance.

Find a way. Kill the Calling. Then he could find Kieran, find Morrigan, and decide again.

He sat down at the small table in the cramped room, pulled out parchment, quill, and ink, and began to pen a response.


	123. What could have been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Morrigan, Alistair, and Demon God Baby, implied Warden!Alistair/f!Warden / G / angsty fluff)
> 
> Contains spoilers for DA:I and a teeny bit of my fave headcanon

Leaving Kieran with him is hard. For a decade, it has been the two of them. Even in Orlais, in the middle of Celene’s court, he has been sheltered. Protected. _Hers_.

But as Alistair rests on one knee before his son, Morrigan can see the ache in him. King’s bastard. Parentless boy. Ill-begotten demon child, but _his_ , done for _her_ , the silvery ring on his finger like a beacon announcing that relationship in dazzling semaphore. He smiles, and Morrigan sees Kieran in it, has to look away, eyes stinging.

She thought back to the Wilds, of the first time she saw him. So young. So foolish. They both were. Neither of them are young any longer, but she perhaps is still foolish. If only she had not been so scornful. If only she had known what Flemeth was about.

If only she was not who she is.

“He’s a rather remarkable boy,” Alistair says in a low voice nearly at her elbow, startling her.

She pulls her composure around her, the mask back into place. “Is it so surprising to you?”

“Well, yes,” he says, a hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck ruefully, and, for a moment, it is as if the years had never passed. His hand drops, though, and the surprising maturity returns. “Morrigan, I—”

“Do not,” is all she says, a warning, a plea. Their eyes meet, and she remembers a night, Redcliffe Castle. Only a moment—his eyes slide away down and to the side, discomfited. Heat stains her cheeks.

He turns. He leaves. Just as he did before. Wordlessly.

“Mummy, where did Alistair go? I had something for him.”

She looks at Kieran, holding a red rose from the garden, and smiles bitterly. But she cannot remain bitter looking at her son. “He had to leave, my sweet darling.”

“Oh,” he says, and hands her the flower. “Then it is for you, then.”

She brings the flower to her nose, inhales the rich scent, and her smile warms. _Hers_. “Thank you, my prince. It is very beautiful.”


End file.
